From ‘Solidification’ to ‘Fluidity’: The New Possibilities of Reshaping ‘Place’

-- Centered on “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet”

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-287-3_32How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Place; Third Space; Cultural Conflict; Solidification and Fluidity

Abstract

Jamie Ford, as a unique Chinese-American writer situated in the narrow space between “Chinese literature” and “Chinese-language literature,” reconsiders the identity and cultural conflicts of Asian Americans in his debut novel “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.” Focusing on the protagonist Henry, Ford shapes three sets of relational subjects that exhibit varying degrees of transition from “solidification” to “fluidity”: the relationship between Henry and his father, the romantic relationship between Chinese-American Henry and Japanese-American Keiko, and the father-son relationship between Henry and his son Marty. This paper will start with Yi-Fu Tuan’s concepts of “place” and “space” to reinterpret the true meanings of “solidification” and “fluidity” within a cultural context. On one hand, Henry and his father, born and raised in different cultural backgrounds of China and America, belong to two “large places” on the “nation-state” level and are connected through “home,” a “small place.” The father, as a “defender,” constantly “pulls back” and “sends out” Henry, causing him to be torn and ultimately become a complete “escapist,” thus presenting a dual “solidification” state of both “large place” and “small place.” On the other hand, Henry and Keiko establish a “fluid” “place” through “music,” “letters,” and other “third spaces,” overcoming the barriers of time to reshape “place,” eventually restoring a stable state with both Marty and Keiko.

Copyright

© 2024 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yingying Zheng
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/11/05
TI  - From ‘Solidification’ to ‘Fluidity’: The New Possibilities of Reshaping ‘Place’
BT  - Proceedings of the 2024 3rd International Conference on Comprehensive Art and Cultural Communication (CACC 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 263
EP  - 270
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-287-3_32
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-287-3_32
ID  - Zheng2024
ER  -