Deconstructing a Narrative Hierarchy
Leila Leong's "I" in Fae Myenne Ng's Bone
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4571548 |
|---|---|
| Authors | A Gee (Georgia College & State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 129-140 |
| Publication date | 2004-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | MELUS Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0163-755X • E-ISSN: 1946-3170 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/4141822 |
| OpenAlex | W1978488725 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Bone (1993) is Fae Myenne Ng's first novel, set largely in San Francisco's Chinatown. Its central plot concerns how the members of the Leong family, Mah, Leon, Nina, the narrator Leila, and her boyfriend Mason Louie, seek to understand why Ona, the Leong's middle daughter, is driven to commit suicide. We are informed of the suicide from the first page, then the oldest sister, Leila, recounts events leading to and following the family's tragedy. The framework is circular. The novel ends at a point in time close to where it begins as Leila explores each distinct possibility, no matter how small, that might have caused the loss of her sister. What wish to argue, however, is not a single reason for Ona's suicide, or how the characters do or do not reach an understanding of it, but how Leila's central character, as the I narrator creates a distinguishable hierarchy based on her attempt to find a center that is neither too Chinese nor too American, thus informing us of the complexity of her Chinese American consciousness. This narrative process can be examined using Jacques Derrida's criticism, in particular by applying his fundamental poststructuralist essay, Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences. Ng's narrator, Leila's I, can therefore be viewed as the central personality that governs how particular characters and events appear, consequently establishing the hierarchy. Characters and events are linked to one another through this same organizing principle
Art · Hierarchy · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Sociology · Asian American and Pacific Histories
| Citations per year | 0.75 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |