Cultural Displacement of the Main Character in Ken Liu's The Paper Menagerie

Abstract

The objective of this study is to analyse deeper the phenomenon that caused Jack to displace Chine culture in The Paper Menagerie, a short story written by Ken Liu. This study employs new criticism theory to comprehend the plot, particularly the conflict faced by Jack. This study included a qualitative approach to collect and classify the data as a narrative and belongs to library reseach since the data taken from the short story and other related books and journal articles. The result shows that Jack displaces his Chinese culture as a form of his effort to be accepted in American society. His displacement happen due to external and internal conflicts. The external conflicts are migration from China to the new environment of Connecticut, America and cultural discrimination by his neighbour and friend. The external conflicts include his insecurities or inferior feelings, his Chinese cultural apathy and desire to fit into American society.