“A child isn’t born bitter”(In)human Relations and Monstrous Affects in Hiromi Goto’s The Kappa Child

  1. Sheila Hernández González 1
  1. 1 Universidad de La Laguna
    info

    Universidad de La Laguna

    San Cristobal de La Laguna, España

    ROR https://ror.org/01r9z8p25

Revue:
Canada and Beyond: a Journal of Canadian Literary and Cultural

ISSN: 2254-1179

Année de publication: 2024

Volumen: 13

Número: 1

Pages: 51-67

Type: Article

DOI: 10.14201/CANDB.V13I51-67 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openAccès ouvert editor

D'autres publications dans: Canada and Beyond: a Journal of Canadian Literary and Cultural

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Résumé

This article presents an intersectional reading of Hiromi Goto’s The Kappa Child (2001) through the lens of Affect Theory. Particularly, I draw from Sara Ahmed’s The Promise of Happiness and Lauren Berlant’s Cruel Optimism to analyze the role these notions play in the novel. I focus on the economy of affects that circulates among the characters and the affective significance of their interactions as well as the novel’s engagement with Ahmed’s notion of the promise of happiness and Berlant’s cruel optimism, specifically in relation to female, racialized, and migrant subjects both at a personal level and in the context of the settler colonial nation. My main argument is that the affects and expectations presented in the novel are monstrous. I defend that the protagonist’s affective monstrosity is a direct consequence of her abusive childhood as a racialized migrant in the Canadian Prairies and that choosing to let go of her expectations leads to emotional healing and opens new possibilities towards happiness.

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La source de données: Dialnet