Identity in Contemporary American Novels

                One thing that I enjoyed about the literature we’ve read throughout the course is the treatment of identity.  Contemporary American literature has taken on issues of race and multiculturalism and drawn attention to whiteness in a way that hadn’t been addressed before and still need addressing today.  This can be seen in Tropic of Orange which looked at the complex connections between several individuals in Los Angeles and Mexico.  Each person was a composite of various stereotypes but with their own individuality emerging through.  Tropic of Orange draws attention to a struggle which sees people have difficulty reconciling their personal identity with the identity that is applied to them by others.  This can be seen in again in Woman Warrior while the narrator attempts to find her identity in both a Chinese and American context.  These novels are significant because they don’t treat race as a simplistic issue.  Race is presented as part of a person’s identity, particularly in the way that others perceive them but not as the only way in which the character can be understood.  Race is portrayed as an inregal part of the way a person is shaped though defining a person only by their ethnicity is can be at conflict with the individuality of the character.  This can be seen in the character of Emi in Tropic of Orange who frequently says outrageous things that mock multiculturalism in spite of the fact that she is a part of it.  The girl in Woman Warrior’s identity is driven by her rejection of her mother’s values despite the profound influence that they have on her.  These narratives are important to the American landscape because they represent the uniqueness of the American people.  Yamashita and Kingston both portray race’s complexity rather than simply understanding white as a neutral quality while ethnicity as completely in control of a person’s sense of self.  These authors demonstrate this issue through the construction of their characters who represent these problems of identity which are increasingly relevant to contemporary Americans.  This is especially true of women who did not have as many opportunities to have their voices heard before the feminist movement in the 1970’s.  I enjoyed reading novels in which the subject matter seems even more relevant to cultural identity today than it was when the authors wrote were writing.