Abstract
Korean-American author Tae Keller applied Korean tiger stories such as Sister and Brother Who Became the Sun and the Moon and A Bear and A Tiger Who Want to Be Human to the 2021 Newbery Award-winning book When You Trap a Tiger. In this growth narrative of diaspora woman, the aspects of tiger metaphors being used can be summarized into four categories: First of all, the tiger symbolizes the destructive energy of shadow. In this novel, Lily, the 9-year-old protagonist, needed the power of shadow to break through the persona of Quiet Asian Girl. The tiger also emblematizes death itself or the god of death, something humans fear. In order for the grandmother Ae-Cha to accept the new stage of life's journey of death, and for Lily to realize the secret of life with death, two women must communicate with the tiger as the Grim Reaper. The third is the tiger as the guardian of stories. In the beginning, it performed a mission to guard the star jars full of stories. The reason it appeared before Lily was also to regain the story that Ae-Cha stole and bottled, and eventually it helps two women reconstruct their narratives without ignoring the painful history. Finally, the tiger serves as a guide that leads humans, who rarely understand the world as a whole, to an integrated understanding. The healing that the tiger promised to Lily was not simply a cure for disease, but a reconstruction of one's own story through an integrated understanding.
Author Information
Jeong-Ae Park, Kangwon National University, South Korea
Paper Information
Conference: IICAH2023
Stream: Literature/Literary Studies
This paper is part of the IICAH2023 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Park J. (2023) A Study on the Application of Tiger Metaphors in Diaspora Woman’s Growth Narrative – Focusing on Tae Keller’s Novel: When You Trap a Tiger ISSN: 2432-4604 – The IAFOR International Conference on Arts & Humanities – Hawaii 2023 Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2432-4604.2023.30
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2432-4604.2023.30
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