Review of Cultural Identity in Amy Tan and Kafka: A Search for What is non-American in Amy Tan vs. What is non-German in Franz Kafka

Abstract

The aim of this study is to provide an analysis of cultural identity in both Amy Tan’s narrative on Chinese-American identity in settings she established in her novels and in Franz Kafka’s literary works in light of reflections from Prague settings under the influence of German culture. Amy and Kafka were two unique examples of cultural identity reflections in the literary writing field. Franz Kafka lived a life under the influence of European complex social setting that changed several times with wars, social upheavals, political developments. Amy Tan, on the other hand, lived a life of migration between China and America after two World Wars in a newly emerging modern life in America. While Amy Tan was unique in her approach to cultural contradictions between American and Chinese cultures both dominant in her novels, Franz Kafka reflected the effects of dominant German culture on Jewish nationals of his social circle in his novels. Both authors reflected their dominant culture’s clashes with their cultural roots in their settings, characters and narrative successfully through various techniques and methods. In this study, Amy Tan and Franz Kafka’s use of setting and metanarrative style in their novels was examined in a comparative way to reveal information about cultural experiences from many aspects such as social, historical, psychological and literary perspectives.