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413596

Condemned Isolation in Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You (2014) and Jean Kwok’s Searching for Sylvie Lee (2019): The Failure to Blend in

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Last updated: 25 Feb 2025

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Abstract

Asian Americans have captured public attention since the release of the Chinese American writer Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Worrier in 1976, a memoir narrating her immigrant experience in America. Asian Americans, whether immigrants or second generation, have been facing many problems since the 1950s. Their suffering is everlasting as they are exposed to harassment, bullying, and backlash. To understand the experience of Asian Americans, two novels by Asian American writers have been chosen: Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You (2014) and Jean Kwok's Searching for Sylvie Lee (2019). The two novels highlight racism but focus on familial relationships. Everything I Never Told You narrates the story of a mixed-race family in America in the 1970s while Searching for Sylvie Lee is about a Chinese immigrant family to America in the 21st century. An understanding of these two novels is provided through the lens of Asian Critical (Asian Crit) framework in addition to applying the Relational–Cultural theory (RCT). After analyzing the two novels, it is revealed that the influence of Lydia's and Sylvie's mothers is more detrimental to their psychological well-being than their experience of anti-Asian racism sentiment. Lydia and Sylvie lose their lives due to the absence of healthy relationships. They are destined to experience condemned isolation which sends them straight to their death since no one recognizes their needs.

DOI

10.21608/ejels.2024.413596

Keywords

Asian Americans, AsianCrit, racism, Relational–Cultural Theory

Authors

First Name

Abeer Mohammed Raafat Mohammed

Last Name

Khalaf

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Associate Professor of English Literature, English Department, Faculty of Arts, Assiut University, Egypt

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Volume

13

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

54033

Issue Date

2024-12-01

Receive Date

2025-02-22

Publish Date

2024-12-01

Page Start

13

Page End

34

Print ISSN

2735-4431

Online ISSN

2735-4830

Link

https://ejels.journals.ekb.eg/article_413596.html

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http://journals.ekb.eg?_action=service&article_code=413596

Order

413,596

Type

Scientific Articles

Type Code

1,594

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Egyptian Journal of English Language and Literature Studies

Publication Link

https://ejels.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Condemned Isolation in Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You (2014) and Jean Kwok’s Searching for Sylvie Lee (2019): The Failure to Blend in

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Article

Created At

25 Feb 2025