earticle

영어

David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars describes Japanese immigrant history with the internment and examines the racial bias towards people of Japanese origin after World War Ⅱ. Presenting the irrational trial of Kabuo Miyamoto, Guterson shows the anti-Japanese attitude of the white majority community which originated from the war as well as the prevalent racism. Guterson also devotes himself to explaining the cultural differences between Japanese and white people and promotes mutual understanding. In spite of Guterson’s effort on revealing racial prejudice in the white American society and urging reconciliation between two groups, however, his description serves to prove the limitations when signifying Japanese American’s experience and their voices because Japanese are only represented within the West discourses, only through the white characters. According to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, it is unattainable to speak for the subaltern within the West discourses due to an inability to translate the subaltern’s consciousness and experience. Thus, this article explores Guterson’s narrative strategy to represent the other’s experience and criticizes the limitations of the narrative strategy.