Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Education, Language, Art and Inter-cultural Communication (ICELAIC 2021)

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The Multifaceted Representations of Irritation in Weike Wang’s Chemistry

Authors
Qifeng Sun1, *, Fuyi Feng2
1Department of Foreign Languages, Xi’an Jiaotong University City College, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710018, China
2College of Education and Human Ecology, The Ohio State University, Columbus OH43210, USA
*Corresponding author. Email: sunqifeng0115@126.com
Corresponding Author
Qifeng Sun
Available Online 30 March 2022.
DOI
10.2991/assehr.k.220306.063How to use a DOI?
Keywords
Weike Wang; Chemistry; Representations of irritation; Chinese American women’s literature
Abstract

As a newly-emerged Chinese American female writer, Weike Wang has won many literary awards including the Pen/Hemingway Award for her debut fiction Chemistry. Influenced by the “affective turn,” Chemistry is characterized by the overwhelming depiction of the negative feelings of the Chinese American female protagonist, especially “irritation”, which deeply manifests the politics of ugly feelings. Drawing on Sianne Ngai’s Irritation theory, the present paper examines the representations of irritation of the Chinese American female protagonist in Chemistry. The results indicate that the irritated Chinese American female protagonist demonstrates multifaceted representations in different contexts. In the laboratory, she is represented as a thwarted female Ph. D. candidate; in the family, she is an unhappy daughter; in the social interaction realm, she is a weird woman. The specific manifestations of irritation include hyper-responsiveness, over-repression, self-internalization, physical discomfort, venting emotions to wrong objects, and giving rise to other negative emotions. Last but not least, her irritation, actually, is the embodiment of the predicaments confronting Chinese American women in contemporary American society.

Copyright
© 2022 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.
Open Access
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Education, Language, Art and Inter-cultural Communication (ICELAIC 2021)
Series
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research
Publication Date
30 March 2022
ISBN
10.2991/assehr.k.220306.063
ISSN
2352-5398
DOI
10.2991/assehr.k.220306.063How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2022 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.
Open Access
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license.

Cite this article

risenwbib
TY  - CONF
AU  - Qifeng Sun
AU  - Fuyi Feng
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022/03/30
TI  - The Multifaceted Representations of Irritation in Weike Wang’s Chemistry
BT  - Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Education, Language, Art and Inter-cultural Communication (ICELAIC 2021)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 391
EP  - 399
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.220306.063
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.220306.063
ID  - Sun2022
ER  -