Yone Noguchi’s Impersonation in “The American Diary of a Japanese Girl”
- Authors: Wong E.1
-
Affiliations:
- Trinity University
- Issue: Vol 16, No 4 (2019)
- Pages: 580-594
- Section: Translingual Imagination
- URL: https://journals.rcsi.science/2618-897X/article/view/329687
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.22363/2618-897X-2019-16-4-580-594
- ID: 329687
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Abstract
The first Japanese person known to write and publish an American novel, Yone Noguchi disguises as a Japanese female diarist to counter the orientalist representations of Japanese cultural and feminine images in early twentieth-century United States. His impersonation in “The American Diary of a Japanese Girl”, however, results in a conflicting androgynous voice in which the male competes with the female, as well as in a number of contradictions that compromise characterization and plot development. Situating Noguchi in cultural and historical contexts, this essay examines his identity and reception as a translingual writer of English, and the contradictions found in the novel.
About the authors
Elaine Wong
Trinity University
Email: esiwong@gmail.com
Visiting Assistant Professor at Trinity University in San-Antonio, Texas, USA 1 Trinity Place, San-Antonio, Texas 78212, USA
References
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