• 영어영문학
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• 제57권5호
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• pp.727-755
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• 2011

In this paper, I'll try to read Don Lee's Yellow intertextually with a more canonical text, Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, in order to see what kind of traditions and techniques Yellow references and/or rewrites as a way of tracking this production. Yellow's formal properties as a short story cycle are established through its use of particular conventions. For instance, Yellow follows the short story cycle model that includes the assemblage of recurring characters into one locale. Yellow's characters are all connected to and at some point located in the fictional small town of Rosarita Bay, California. The text form aligns it with established literary conventions and traditions and suggests the author's reliance upon or trust in those modes. Yellow's setting in a small town alludes to and has often been compared to Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, which is perhaps one of the most well-known and extensively discussed short story cycles in American literature. Also following convention is Lee's construction of Rosarita Bay and the text's third person narrator as a member of that town. Both Rosarita Bay and the narrator become important figures through the related-tale nature of the text. The method of story-telling is similar to how the town Winesburg and its "seemingly sympathetic and non-overtly judgmental" narrator are operational in Anderson's text. In sum, Yellow is opportune for intertextual reading largely because it is a collection of stories that create a linked series.

• 영미문화
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• 제18권4호
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• pp.139-162
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• 2018

In "Adventure" Alice Hindman tries to express her repressed sexual instinct with impulsive adventures but becomes a grotesque through her own self-deception and extreme loneliness. She has a passionate relationship with Ned Currie at 16, which defines her identity and molds her entire life. She does believe that Ned may return and stick to his disingenuous word and promises, and holds on to it as the only and absolute truth in her life. Her distortion of reality is in fact based on her self-deception and falsehood she creates. Seized by a strange urge, her second adventure indicates that she wants to feel closer to another grotesque that can understand her loneliness, and that her desire for communication transcends her sexual desire. At the end of the story, she seems to realize that she will die in her bed alone, misunderstood and unloved. But this conclusion shows that, despite the opportunity and potential of another choice, she never makes positive choices and refuses to accept responsibility for her actions. She rather creates an excuse with empty words and shows the limits so as not to get out of her own self-deception. Instead of focusing on Alice's strange behavior and blaming her, Anderson emphasizes the importance of understanding and communication while exploring the sorrow and loneliness of a woman who wants to be loved but is obsessed with self-deception in Winesburg.