“We’re going to write about it.”
When reading Nathan Asch’s “In Search of America”, I found myself very confused as to how the author intended me, as a reader, to feel. Characters faded, the setting changed, and I was unsure as to which setting and character was supposed to have an impact on me. It was quite ambiguous as to which audience Asch was trying to construct.
Through the confusion, however, curiosity and compel still lingered. And as I read Asch’s biography, I began to see the purpose for his narration a bit more clearly. His detached feelings towards America may have been caused for his lack of identity, as he migrated back and forth between Europe and America. Though the narrator tried to identify with the characters he came across on his journey, the narrator’s identity was still unclear.
A lack of identity is a shared theme in the children’s comic “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi. A young girl narrates the story with an unquenched curiosity and love for knowledge. She begins the story wanting to be a prophet, and often deals with a struggle against herself and what she should become. Though she is only a child, she still feels the responsibility that an adult might feel and attempts to bring social justice to her society.
Though the narrator is unsure of where she stands as a daughter and a friend, the audience can at least understand that she is searching. We understand the narrator’s thoughts exactly because it is illustrated for the audience within every scene. So though both the narrator in “In Search of America” and “Persepolis” are in search of identity, their ability to express it, or lack there of, is what makes the constructed audience differ.
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I completely agree with Taryn, but I think that the title of Asch’s story may also aid in elucidating the cause for his search for identity.
ReplyDeleteAfter also reading Asch’s biography (http://www.bookrags.com/biography/nathan-asch-dlb/), I was, at first, unsure of why he chose to tell his story in America. It seemed to me as though a place that he had felt so rejected by would be an unlikely locale for his finding himself, and that perhaps a different location that he felt more comfortable in, such as Europe, would have been more fruitful and less sudden at the end. But, after some thought I have come to the conclusion that he chose America because his complex relationship with it was in fact the cause of his identity crisis.
As Taryn mentioned, “Characters faded, the setting changed, and I was unsure as to which setting and character was supposed to have an impact on me.” This method of narration was in a sense Asch’s attempts to try on varying roles in American society. He talks to the owners of the farms and the owners of the companies, and additionally he, as the narrator, plays the role of an intellectual and writer that is in many ways separate from the very poor and oppressed people that play the primary role in telling his story. I think that this supports Taryn’s point because, if the story were not a search for identity and was instead as we originally discussed in class a plea for social justice, these different members of society would not have been examined, and although the treatment of different American lives may be unequal, they are all represented.
So, I think that although the ending of Asch’s search for identity in America left the readers wanting more, it was necessary for Asch to set his story in America and to have this complex method of narration because of his complex relationship with America. He didn’t need to merely find himself, he needed to reconcile himself with America also.
I appreciate Adrienne's comment because it made me understand Asch's perspective in a whole new light.
ReplyDeleteHad Asch not come to America, he probably would have held an eternal comfort with his identity and self, as Europe would have been all he had known. However, it is because he travels to America that there is a stirring in his soul, and that he realizes his identity crises. The social injustice he comes across opens his eyes to a new way of living, and he is unsure of how he feels he can conquer it. Therefore, the almost diluted narration can be explained by the author's own confusion on the way that he can reach others.
I feel that this may also shed some light on why the author chose to make the narrator an intellectual writer. As writers, we are often told to write what you know, and I do not feel that Asch was able to identify with the working class in America. Therefore, he almost took the exact position of empathy, rather than sympathy, that he holds in real life.