Graduation Semester and Year
2010
Language
English
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts in English
Department
English
First Advisor
William Arce
Abstract
This study compares Arturo Islas's novel, The Rain God: A Desert Tale with Cynthia Ozick's novella, "Envy; or Yiddish in America." Specifically, I argue that during the 1970s, these authors fictionalized the discourse concerning trans-generational cultural inheritance anxiety. Islas and Ozick shared an anxiety about the future of their individual ethnic culture in America because the children born in America were moving away from the ethnic culture they inherited from their parents. Ozick and Islas's fictions question whether accepting a new American identity, as many ofthe youth in their stories do, may severely impact the continuation of their ethnic culture. Islas and Ozick voice their anxiety over these trans-generational changes quite differently, yet both recognize that bridges must be built across the generations to ensure the continuation of theirethnic culture in America.
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | English Language and Literature
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Rhea, Thomas, "Building Cultural Bridges Across Generational Chasms: Comparing Chicano And Jewish American Literature" (2010). English Theses. 21.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/english_theses/21
Comments
Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington