A Journey across Multidirectional Connections: Linda Grant’s The Cast Iron Shore
Among the numerous groups that have negotiated their fragmented identities through various literary practices in the last few decades, the Jewish collective has come to symbolize the epitome of diaspora and homelessness. In particular, British-Jewish writers have recently started to reconstruct thei...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2015-10-01
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| Series: | Humanities |
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| Online Access: | http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/4/4/535 |
| _version_ | 1819173264292839424 |
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| author | Silvia Pellicer-Ortín |
| author_facet | Silvia Pellicer-Ortín |
| author_sort | Silvia Pellicer-Ortín |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Among the numerous groups that have negotiated their fragmented identities through various literary practices in the last few decades, the Jewish collective has come to symbolize the epitome of diaspora and homelessness. In particular, British-Jewish writers have recently started to reconstruct their fragmented memories through writing. This is an extremely interesting phenomenon in the case of those Jewish women who are fiercely struggling to find some sense of personhood as Jewish, British, female, immigrant subjects. Linda Grant’s novel The Cast Iron Shore will be analyzed so as to unveil the narrative mechanisms through which many of the identity tensions experienced by contemporary Jewish women are exhibited. The different stages in the main character’s journey will be examined by drawing on theories on the construction of Jewish identity and femininity, and by applying the model of multidirectional memory fostered by various contemporary thinkers such as Michael Rothberg, Stef Craps, Max Silverman, and Bryan Cheyette. The main claim to be demonstrated is that this narration links the (hi)stories of oppression and racism endured both by the Jewish and the Black communities in order to make the protagonist encounter the Other, develop her mature political self, and liberate her mind from rigid religious, patriarchal, and racial stereotypes. The Cast Iron Shore becomes, then, a successful attempt to demonstrate that the (hi)stories of displacement endured by divergent communities during the twentieth century are connected, and it is the establishment of these connections that can help contemporary Jewish subjects to claim new notions of their personhood in the public sphere. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-22T20:20:19Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-54c450d021c74007ad61ab9c9f7de6f1 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-0787 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-22T20:20:19Z |
| publishDate | 2015-10-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Humanities |
| spelling | doaj.art-54c450d021c74007ad61ab9c9f7de6f12022-12-21T18:13:51ZengMDPI AGHumanities2076-07872015-10-014453555310.3390/h4040535h4040535A Journey across Multidirectional Connections: Linda Grant’s The Cast Iron ShoreSilvia Pellicer-Ortín0Department of English and German Philology, University of Zaragoza, Calle Pedro Cerbuna, 12. 50009 Zaragoza, SpainAmong the numerous groups that have negotiated their fragmented identities through various literary practices in the last few decades, the Jewish collective has come to symbolize the epitome of diaspora and homelessness. In particular, British-Jewish writers have recently started to reconstruct their fragmented memories through writing. This is an extremely interesting phenomenon in the case of those Jewish women who are fiercely struggling to find some sense of personhood as Jewish, British, female, immigrant subjects. Linda Grant’s novel The Cast Iron Shore will be analyzed so as to unveil the narrative mechanisms through which many of the identity tensions experienced by contemporary Jewish women are exhibited. The different stages in the main character’s journey will be examined by drawing on theories on the construction of Jewish identity and femininity, and by applying the model of multidirectional memory fostered by various contemporary thinkers such as Michael Rothberg, Stef Craps, Max Silverman, and Bryan Cheyette. The main claim to be demonstrated is that this narration links the (hi)stories of oppression and racism endured both by the Jewish and the Black communities in order to make the protagonist encounter the Other, develop her mature political self, and liberate her mind from rigid religious, patriarchal, and racial stereotypes. The Cast Iron Shore becomes, then, a successful attempt to demonstrate that the (hi)stories of displacement endured by divergent communities during the twentieth century are connected, and it is the establishment of these connections that can help contemporary Jewish subjects to claim new notions of their personhood in the public sphere.http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/4/4/535British-Jewishidentitydisplacementmultidirectional memorytraumaethicspoliticsfemininityhybridityOther |
| spellingShingle | Silvia Pellicer-Ortín A Journey across Multidirectional Connections: Linda Grant’s The Cast Iron Shore Humanities British-Jewish identity displacement multidirectional memory trauma ethics politics femininity hybridity Other |
| title | A Journey across Multidirectional Connections: Linda Grant’s The Cast Iron Shore |
| title_full | A Journey across Multidirectional Connections: Linda Grant’s The Cast Iron Shore |
| title_fullStr | A Journey across Multidirectional Connections: Linda Grant’s The Cast Iron Shore |
| title_full_unstemmed | A Journey across Multidirectional Connections: Linda Grant’s The Cast Iron Shore |
| title_short | A Journey across Multidirectional Connections: Linda Grant’s The Cast Iron Shore |
| title_sort | journey across multidirectional connections linda grant s the cast iron shore |
| topic | British-Jewish identity displacement multidirectional memory trauma ethics politics femininity hybridity Other |
| url | http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/4/4/535 |
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