earticle

영어

This paper examines the dynamics of violence and power represented in An Na’s A Step from Heaven, Marie G. Lee’s Finding My Voice and Necessary Roughness. I focus on A Step from Heaven to explore the domestic violence and on Finding My Voice and Necessary Roughness to discuss school violence. The first section of this paper explores the various aspects of domestic violence that the patriarchal and authoritative Korean American immigrant father exerted on his daughter YoungJu, the main character of An Na’s A Step from Heaven. I attempt to trace YoungJu’s reaction to the awful violence as a victim and a witness, and then analyze how she successfully developed her emerging subjectivity and her power to rise above the trauma. In the second section, this paper examines how the racialism by white people creates a context for the verbal and physical violence for Ellen and Chan, Lee’s Korean American protagonists, in their school. This section also analyzes how the violence that Ellen and Chan experienced is related to the power structures operating inside and outside school.