Alienation in 20th-Century North American Literature

Introduction: Diverse Voices and the Theme of Alienation

North American literature of the twentieth century began as a predominantly white male-dominated tradition, building on the heels of nineteenth-century romantic literary expression found in the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Stephen Crane, and others. In the early decades of the twentieth century, American literature was similarly dominated by the likes of William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Theodore Dreiser, and other white male authors, whose works understandably reflected their own experiences and worldviews. In the latter half of the century, however — subsequent to World War II — more diverse voices began to appear within North American literature. By the time authors like Maxine Hong Kingston, Toni Morrison, and James Baldwin came on the scene, diverse literary viewpoints were beginning to be seen as integral to the American literary canon.

Many North American writers of the twentieth century were predominantly interested in the theme of alienation, which is often inherent in the cultural stereotypes explored by authors such as Maxine Hong Kingston, Toni Morrison, and James Baldwin. This essay examines how works by these three authors express the North American twentieth-century literary theme of alienation.

Alienation in Maxine Hong Kingston and Chinese-American Literature

Chinese and Chinese-American experience within the United States is fraught with alienation. In Maxine Hong Kingston's China Men, a character based closely on Kingston's own immigrant grandfather risks his life repeatedly, dynamiting mountains so that the transcontinental railroad can be built, only to be dehumanized and denigrated by white Americans, who consider him only partially human. However, Kingston does not spare China itself, or the Chinese themselves, in her explorations of alienation rooted in the devaluation of certain individuals and the stereotypes attached to them.

In "No Name Woman", for example, Kingston explores the fate of the Asian woman in China — particularly a female family member, the "No Name Woman," who committed suicide in a society where females were deeply devalued. This dead female relative remains unspoken of, as though she never existed. Chinese-American women in America were similarly devalued by their families; according to Kingston, they were considered "the maggots in the rice," while their more valued brothers were "the rice" itself.

More recently, the novels of Chinese-American author Amy Tan have explored intra-cultural conflicts between Chinese-born mothers and their Americanized daughters, and those daughters' tendencies to denigrate the "Chinese" part of themselves — at considerable personal cost, as the daughters slowly and painfully discover in works including The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God's Wife. Within the literary works of both Kingston and Tan, alienation is a dominant theme, especially for women, though it affects men as well.

Alienation in James Baldwin's 'Sonny's Blues'

The works of two major African-American authors of the twentieth century, James Baldwin and Toni Morrison, also focus on alienation — specifically, the alienation felt by African Americans within white-dominated North America. One of the most striking examples of this theme in Baldwin's work occurs in his short story "Sonny's Blues." The narrator, an older brother of a jazz pianist named Sonny, discovers at the end of the story — to his own surprise — that he is just as alienated from himself as his younger brother Sonny is from him.

Sonny, however, is far less alienated from African-American culture, perhaps by virtue of his music. His older brother (unnamed within the story) has spent so much time becoming a respectable, upstanding citizen — as white society would define it — that he has forgotten his roots. He does not even fully realize the extent of his alienation from those roots until, sitting inside a smoky piano bar in Harlem and listening to Sonny play jazz, he sees through the haze a reflection of who he himself truly is.

The connection to Langston Hughes's poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" is relevant here: at the end of "Sonny's Blues," Sonny's brother perceives that Sonny's soul "has grown deep like the rivers," although his own, he implicitly recognizes, has not. As "Sonny's Blues" illustrates, African-American fiction of the twentieth century often depicts two distinct types of alienation: first, alienation from society (as exemplified by Sonny), and second, alienation from oneself (as exemplified by Sonny's older brother).

Conclusion: Alienation Across Minority Experiences

In all of the twentieth-century works of American literature discussed here, characters who are members of minority groups within the United States — whether Chinese, Chinese-American, or African-American — feel alienated, often from themselves as much as from their broader culture. Moreover, both forms of alienation are deeply interrelated. Maxine Hong Kingston, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison each express, in their own distinct ways, the major North American twentieth-century literary theme of alienation.