This dissertation approaches literary animals in Asian diasporic novels through the concept of drawing close. I am interested in how literary animals can communicate an endeavour to draw animals close, and how literary representations of this closeness imagine normative human-animal relationships otherwise. I argue that even the most subtle literary animal can be read as a practice and expression of drawing animals close, and this closeness reveals itself most directly through each chapter in relation to belonging, family, and inheritance. This project centers around the question: what can stories offer animals?
I argue that the fields of literary animal studies, postcolonial studies, and Asian diasporic studies need to come together in order to attend not only to the multiple ways that animals inhabit Asian diasporic novels, but also to the particular relationships between postcolonial subjects and animals. I chose novels that navigate relationships to animals often informed by Hindu and Buddhist epistemologies as an intervention in the predominantly Western-focused field of animal studies that has prioritized Western religious traditions, philosophies, and literature. Each chapter of this dissertation examines the diverse ways that authors listen to and represent literary animals, at times acting as a reflection of the desire and efforts to fortify the human-animal boundary, and at other times significantly challenging human exceptionalism by advocating for compassion and interdependence between humans and animals. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This project looks at animals in Asian North American novels. Whether they are symbolic, mythical, historical, or everyday companions, I argue that paying close attention to animals in stories that are otherwise about humans reveals how they shape our ideas about belonging, family, and inheritance. I focus specifically on three novels: Monique Truong’s The Book of Salt, Madeleine Thien’s Dogs at the Perimeter, and Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being. Each novel represents animals in complex ways that are informed by various ways of knowing the world, such as religious (Hindu and Buddhist), scientific, or cultural knowledges. One central question that directs this dissertation is: what can literary animals teach us when we learn to pay attention to them?
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/22066 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Thiyagarajan, Nandini |
| Contributors | Goellnicht, Donald, English |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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