School of Culture and Communication - Theses
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Item"I lost the world where I belonged. Now I don't belong anywhere": writing Third Culture experiences( 2007)In 1990 the Hubble Telescope was launched into outer space, and for the first time, human beings were able to see the universe more clearly. It was also the year that I started to understand myself in relation to the rest of the world. I have always felt like an outsider because I left my country of origin when I was an infant. However, 1990 was the year that my family began moving from country to country more frequently. I eventually lost my ability to identify with my first culture. I was thirteen and I became a Third Culture Kid. I am now a Third Culture Adult (or Adult Third Culture Kid). This thesis explores the writing of Third Culture experiences. I have chosen to discuss Isabel Allende’s work because, as a diplomat’s daughter, she has lived in Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East during her childhood (Allende 2003: 106-109). Specifically, I will discuss her memoir of her first culture, My Invented Country (2003) and her novel, The House of the Spirits (1985). I will discuss Allende’s writing in relation to what Julia Kristeva calls “the stranger within”, by which she means the uncanny within the self that Sigmund Freud also calls the unheimlich or “unhomely” (Kristeva 1991: 191). Allende’s writing, particularly The House of the Spirits, which is full of magical images, is an example of the uncanny stranger within as it might be expressed through storytelling. I will discuss Allende’s writing in relation to Jerome Bruner’s storied self because Allende’s stories are undoubtedly affected by her Third Culture self. Lastly, I will discuss my own writing in relation to the Third Culture experience. I will also relate all of these things to David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken’s discussion of the experience, its challenges and benefits, and its defining link to the life of the Global Nomad.