DOI: 10.5176/2251-3566_L315.65
Authors: Xing Weiwei and Qiao Guoqiang
Abstract:
Starting from the superficial fact of Michael Chabon’s bridging different genres with ironies and distorts, the essay is to investigate the unnaturalness in his narratives in the light of the exciting new paradigms in narratology, i.e. unnatural narratology. That is to say, Chabon’s genre mixes violate the natural narratives skillfully with his framework of unnatural narrative strategies, which actually build the text further to his concerns of self identities. More specifically, the essay presents three analyses of textual examples of unnatural narrative strategies in Chabon’s story worlds. The first exploration of the unnatural masculinity proceeds by analyzing Art Beckstein’s gender identity confusion in The Mysteries of Pittsburg(1988). The essay goes on to examine the logically impossible world in The Final Solution (2004), thereby checking Chabon’s reflection over racial identity through the unsolved mystery on the Jewish boy’s parrot’s singing. It moves further to the question of physically impossible world in 2007 The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by studying the reversed temporality and the fictitious alternative history, which elevates and broadens Chabon’s identity pursuit to the national identity.
Keywords: Michael Chabon; unnatural narratology; masculinity; Jewishness; Diaspora；spriritual homeland
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