This thesis offers a close reading of Yaa Gyasi’s historical fiction novel Homegoing, which is set from roughly the eighteenth century until the end of the twentieth century. It explores identity...Show moreThis thesis offers a close reading of Yaa Gyasi’s historical fiction novel Homegoing, which is set from roughly the eighteenth century until the end of the twentieth century. It explores identity theories of double consciousness, the white gaze, and generational trauma to examine how historical events have affected the identity of the characters in the American narrative. This essay also underscores how the novel depicts the effects of systemic racism on African American identity. It concludes that the characters' struggle with identification is tied to the loss of their ancestry, which forces them to forge a new culture and identity. Marcus, the final character of the novel, heals the trauma inflicted on his lineage by returning to his ancestral home.Show less
This thesis offers a close reading of Yaa Gyasi’s historical fiction novel Homegoing, which is set from roughly the eighteenth century until the end of the twentieth century. It explores identity...Show moreThis thesis offers a close reading of Yaa Gyasi’s historical fiction novel Homegoing, which is set from roughly the eighteenth century until the end of the twentieth century. It explores identity theories of double consciousness, the white gaze, and generational trauma to examine how historical events have affected the identity of the characters in the American narrative. This essay also underscores how the novel depicts the effects of systemic racism on African American identity. It concludes that the characters' struggle with identification is tied to the loss of their ancestry, which forces them to forge a new culture and identity. Marcus, the final character of the novel, heals the trauma inflicted on his lineage by returning to his ancestral home.Show less
This thesis offers a close reading of Yaa Gyasi’s historical fiction novel Homegoing, which is set from roughly the eighteenth century until the end of the twentieth century. It explores identity...Show moreThis thesis offers a close reading of Yaa Gyasi’s historical fiction novel Homegoing, which is set from roughly the eighteenth century until the end of the twentieth century. It explores identity theories of double consciousness, the white gaze, and generational trauma to examine how historical events have affected the identity of the characters in the American narrative. This essay also underscores how the novel depicts the effects of systemic racism on African American identity. It concludes that the characters' struggle with identification is tied to the loss of their ancestry, which forces them to forge a new culture and identity. Marcus, the final character of the novel, heals the trauma inflicted on his lineage by returning to his ancestral home.Show less
This thesis offers a close reading of Yaa Gyasi’s historical fiction novel Homegoing, which is set from roughly the eighteenth century until the end of the twentieth century. It explores identity...Show moreThis thesis offers a close reading of Yaa Gyasi’s historical fiction novel Homegoing, which is set from roughly the eighteenth century until the end of the twentieth century. It explores identity theories of double consciousness, the white gaze, and generational trauma to examine how historical events have affected the identity of the characters in the American narrative. This essay also underscores how the novel depicts the effects of systemic racism on African American identity. It concludes that the characters' struggle with identification is tied to the loss of their ancestry, which forces them to forge a new culture and identity. Marcus, the final character of the novel, heals the trauma inflicted on his lineage by returning to his ancestral home.Show less
This thesis focuses on the ways in which the linguistic choices of drag queens can play a role in their identity performance. Transcripts from season nine of the television show RuPaul’s Drag Race...Show moreThis thesis focuses on the ways in which the linguistic choices of drag queens can play a role in their identity performance. Transcripts from season nine of the television show RuPaul’s Drag Race were analysed in order to determine what lexical and grammatical features were more common among drag queens on this show than in general English conversation. The pervasive features of their language were then considered in their context to see how these features could possibly relate to the construction and performance of identity. The results show that the language of drag queens can be seen as drawing attention to one’s own personality and identity as a drag performer and as imitating stereotypically female ways of using language. In addition, the language of drag queens contains a strong emphasis on collective identity as a subgroup within the broader LGBTQ+ community.Show less
This dissertation focusses on the gay identity construction in an online environment. The performativity of identity and the existence of a separate gay culture are discussed. Gay identity can be...Show moreThis dissertation focusses on the gay identity construction in an online environment. The performativity of identity and the existence of a separate gay culture are discussed. Gay identity can be constructed regardless of sexuality. 1.Can gay slang construct gay identity on a social media platform such as twitter and what context or demographics might be relevant to do so? 2.How gay are the terms coded according to the respondents of the NRE compared to the other 4 sources? 3.Can anyone participate in gay culture? This will be examined by looking at how and who use 10 slang terms on Twitter selected from Rupaul's Drag Race. Next to this a Natural Response Elicitation is also conducted, a questionnaire posted on Reddit with three questions per term regarding users, meaning and context. There were several results concerning the meaning of the terms, the users and the context of the usage. All these led to see which terms could, and in which context, construct gay-identity. And in turn, whether outsiders can participate in gay culture. The main conclusion is that the meaning given to the terms, the users of the terms and the context in which they are used are relevant in order to perform gay-identity through gay linguistic expressions.Show less
This thesis analyses Gloria Anzaldúa’s redefinition of "home" in her ground-breaking book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza and applies it to Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street....Show moreThis thesis analyses Gloria Anzaldúa’s redefinition of "home" in her ground-breaking book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza and applies it to Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street. Anzaldúa redefines home as a space of contradictions, instead of comfort, and this notion of home can also be seen in The House on Mango Street, especially towards the end of the novel. Importantly, home in the borderlands Anzaldúa and Esperanza inhabit is closely connected with their fractured sense of identity. However, both Anzaldúa and Esperanza eventually are able to make a home in the borderlands and resolve their identity struggles, albeit in different ways. Anzaldúa accomplishes this by theorizing what she calls a “mestiza consciousness,” which allows her to accept her multiple identities and to make a home in the contradictory space of the borderlands, while Esperanza makes her home by writing about growing up in the poor urban Latino neighborhood of Mango Street and thus comes to terms with her identity conflicts by constructing an identity for herself as a Chicana writer.Show less
