Paper Details

Name: Auritra Munshi
Country: India

Year: 2016
Volume: Volume-3, Issue-1 (January-June)
Page Number: 77-82

The present paper aims at exploring Philip Kan Gotanda’s hero Kitamura’s inclination to evoke the Asian American movement of 1960s by composing a paper on it which problematizes his identity. He is straddling between ethnic and mainstream culture. His self has been splintered into two halves –Id and Ego. Kitamura’s ego is being constructed by the core American culture where he has a social prestige being a law professor and he seeks to retain it adhering to the symbolic order. On the other hand the lack which he has to come across is the lack or absence of the student movement in which he was a participant and it leads him to return to his unconscious state or Id where he wants to be the part of it and also tries to repress it with a view to negotiating with mainstream American culture. However, the allegation by Sam belonging to his own Asian American Community regarding Kitamura’s wearing of the mask of the middleclass American makes him enervated, distanced from his life and yields to him paranoid stature. This is how political becomes personal that can be felt in the act of his repression and expression that invariably debilitates his personality, though the play ends with regaining of his ability tinged with a bit of optimism.
Key Words: Asian American movement, model minority, psychoanalysis, alienation, [dis]ability