Reflections in a Filipino's Eye: Southern Masculinity and the Colonial Subject

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

Some of my research here has been previously published in Japanese as articles titled “Gurotesuku no posuto/coroniaru na tankyu—McCullers no Reflections in a Golden Eye wo yomu [Post-Colonial Exploration for the Grotesque: Reading McCullers's Reflections in a Golden Eye]” (Hokkaido American Literature 22 (2006): 35–49) and “Yokubou to aidentiti no monogatari—Carson McCullers no Reflections in a Golden Eye [Desire and Identity—Carson McCullers's Reflections in a Golden Eye]” (Bungakukenkyu wa nani no tame [What Good Is Literary Study?], ed. Teruhiko Nagao. Sapporo: Hokkaido UP, 2008. 289–305). However, this research has never been translated into English.

¹Evans uses this phrase as a chapter head for his discussion of Reflections in a Golden Eye, explaining that “one reader remarked that in this book not even the horse was normal” (80).

²We should notice here that “animality” is generally considered an attribute, not of the white people, but of other races such as the black people and Filipinos, in the South. By placing the adjective “good” before “animal,” Langdon seems to distinguish the Southern white male's animalistic masculinity and that of the other races.

³Kimmel's citations are from Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (New York: Viking, 1989). See Kimmel 449 (n.11).

⁴Here, it is worth noting that Langdon does not see their relationship as a heterosexual one, no matter how much time they spend together.

⁵Alison is the only one who witnesses Penderton stealing a silver spoon and Williams entering Penderton's house.