Date of Award
12-2008
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Degree Program
English
Department
English
Major Professor
Gery, John R.O.
Second Advisor
Tuley, Laura
Third Advisor
Osundare, Olawaniyi
Abstract
This paper examines assimilation and double-consciousness in the poetry of Charles Simic, Marilyn Chin, and Susan Atefat-Peckham. Each of these three poets writes in English in an American setting but has a different heritage. Simic is a native Yugoslavian (Serbia) who fled Europe during WWII. Chin arrived in the U.S. from Hong Kong as a child, and Atefat-Peckham is a first-generation American raised by Iranian parents. Each of these poets expresses some degree of assimilation and double-consciousness (as described by various theorists including W.E.B. Du Bois and Werner Sollors, among others) through the form and content of their poetry. This paper compares the three poets' work, attempting to draw inferences on how double-consciousness and assimilation is expressed in their poems and to what degree. This study argues that Simic is the least assimilated (as his poetry portrays the most severe double-consciousness), Chin is in-between and Atefat-Peckham the most assimilated.
Recommended Citation
Kidder, Katherine, "Otherness and Assimilation: The Poetry of Double-consciousness in the Works of Charles Simic, Marilyn Chin, and Susan Atefat-Peckham" (2008). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 875.
https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/875
Rights
The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.