“A child isn’t born bitter”: (In)human Relations and Monstrous Affects in Hiromi Goto’s The Kappa Child
Abstract
This article presents an intersectional reading of Hiromi Goto’s The Kappa Child (2001) through the lens of Affect Theory. Particularly, I draw from Sara Ahmed’s The Promise of Happiness and Lauren Berlant’s Cruel Optimism to analyze the role these notions play in the novel. I focus on the economy of affects that circulates among the characters and the affective significance of their interactions as well as the novel’s engagement with Ahmed’s notion of the promise of happiness and Berlant’s cruel optimism, specifically in relation to female, racialized, and migrant subjects both at a personal level and in the context of the settler colonial nation. My main argument is that the affects and expectations presented in the novel are monstrous. I defend that the protagonist’s affective monstrosity is a direct consequence of her abusive childhood as a racialized migrant in the Canadian Prairies and that choosing to let go of her expectations leads to emotional healing and opens new possibilities towards happiness.
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Ahmed, Sara. “Creating Disturbance: Feminism, Happiness and Affective Differences.” Working with Affect in Feminist Readings: Disturbing Differences, edited by Marianne Liljeström and Susanna Paasonen, Routledge, 2010, pp. 31-44.
—. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh UP, 2004.
—. The Promise of Happiness. Duke UP, 2010.
Bannerji, Himani. The Dark Side of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism and Gender. Canadian Scholars’ P, 2000.
Berlant, Lauren. Cruel Optimism. Duke UP, 2011.
Carrière, Marie. “Foreword/Avant-propos.” Atlantis, vol. 38, no. 2, 2017, pp. 9-11.
Clough, Patricia T. “The Affective Turn: Political Economy, Biomedia, and Bodies.” The Affect Theory Reader, edited by Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth, Duke UP, 2010, pp. 206-25.
Eng, David L., and Shinhee Han C.S.W. “A Dialogue on Racial Melancholia.” Psychoanalytic Dialogues, vol. 10, no. 4, 2000, pp. 667-700, doi: 10.1080/10481881009348576.
García-Zarranz, Libe, and Evelyne Ledoux-Beaugrand. “Feminist Affects in Productions Littéraires et Culturelles: An Introduction.” Atlantis, vol. 38, no. 2, 2017, pp. 3-8.
Goto, Hiromi. “Cross-Cultural Creatures.” Interview with Debbie Notkin. The Women’s Review of Books, vol. 19, no. 10-11, 2002, pp. 17-18.
—. The Kappa Child. Red Deer P, 2001.
—. “Trap Door to the Sublime: Hiromi Goto Finds Poetry in the Horrific, Beauty in the Mundane.” Interview with Sook C. Kong. Herizons, vol. 18, no. 2, 2004, pp. 28-29 and 46.
Huber, Jess. “Queering Bodies, Queering Boundaries: Localizing Identity in and of the Body in Hiromi Goto’s The Kappa Child.” Review of International American Studies, vol. 5, no. 1-2, 2011, pp. 135-63.
Kang, Nancy. “Water Birth: Domestic Violence and Monstrosity in Hiromi Goto’s The Kappa Child.” Transnationalism and the Asian American Heroine: Essays on Literature, Film, Myth and Media, edited by Lan Dong, McFarland & Co., 2010, pp. 26-45.
Lai, Larissa. “Familiarizing Grist Village: Why I Write Speculative Fiction.” Canadian Literature, no. 240, 2020, pp. 20-39.
—. Slanting I, Imagining We: Asian Canadian Literary Production in the 1980s and 1990s. Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2014.
Leonard, Elisabeth Anne. “Race and Ethnicity in Science Fiction.” The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, edited by Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn, Cambridge UP, 2003, pp. 253-63.
Liljeström, Marianne. “Affect.” The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory, edited by Lisa Disch and Mary Hawkesworth, Oxford UP, 2016, pp. 16-38.
Martín-Lucas, Belén. “Burning Down the Little House on the Prairie: Asian Pioneers in Contemporary North America.” Atlantis, vol. 33, no. 2, 2011, pp. 27-41.
—. “Of Aliens, Monsters, and Vampires: Speculative Fantasy’s Strategies of Dissent (Transnational Feminist Fiction).” Unruly Penelopes and the Ghosts: Narratives of English Canada, edited by Eva Darias-Beautell, Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2012, pp. 107-30.
—. “Posthuman Affect in the Global Empire: Queer Speculative Fictions of Canada.” Beyond “Understanding Canada”: Transnational Perspectives on Canadian Literature, edited by Melissa Tanti, et al., U of Alberta P, 2017, pp. 151-71.
—. “Posthumanist Feminism and Interspecies Affect in Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber.” Atlantis, vol. 38, no. 2, 2017, pp. 105-15.
Sedgwick, Eve K. Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity. Duke UP, 2003.
Terada, Rei. Feeling in Theory: Emotion after the “Death of the Subject.” Harvard UP, 2001.
Torrado-Mariñas, Laura. “Hiromi Goto’s The Kappa Child: When myth destabilizes reality.” Current Trends in Anglophone Studies: Cultural, Linguistic and Literary Research, edited by Javier Ruano-García, et al., Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2011, pp. 255-64.
—. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh UP, 2004.
—. The Promise of Happiness. Duke UP, 2010.
Bannerji, Himani. The Dark Side of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism and Gender. Canadian Scholars’ P, 2000.
Berlant, Lauren. Cruel Optimism. Duke UP, 2011.
Carrière, Marie. “Foreword/Avant-propos.” Atlantis, vol. 38, no. 2, 2017, pp. 9-11.
Clough, Patricia T. “The Affective Turn: Political Economy, Biomedia, and Bodies.” The Affect Theory Reader, edited by Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth, Duke UP, 2010, pp. 206-25.
Eng, David L., and Shinhee Han C.S.W. “A Dialogue on Racial Melancholia.” Psychoanalytic Dialogues, vol. 10, no. 4, 2000, pp. 667-700, doi: 10.1080/10481881009348576.
García-Zarranz, Libe, and Evelyne Ledoux-Beaugrand. “Feminist Affects in Productions Littéraires et Culturelles: An Introduction.” Atlantis, vol. 38, no. 2, 2017, pp. 3-8.
Goto, Hiromi. “Cross-Cultural Creatures.” Interview with Debbie Notkin. The Women’s Review of Books, vol. 19, no. 10-11, 2002, pp. 17-18.
—. The Kappa Child. Red Deer P, 2001.
—. “Trap Door to the Sublime: Hiromi Goto Finds Poetry in the Horrific, Beauty in the Mundane.” Interview with Sook C. Kong. Herizons, vol. 18, no. 2, 2004, pp. 28-29 and 46.
Huber, Jess. “Queering Bodies, Queering Boundaries: Localizing Identity in and of the Body in Hiromi Goto’s The Kappa Child.” Review of International American Studies, vol. 5, no. 1-2, 2011, pp. 135-63.
Kang, Nancy. “Water Birth: Domestic Violence and Monstrosity in Hiromi Goto’s The Kappa Child.” Transnationalism and the Asian American Heroine: Essays on Literature, Film, Myth and Media, edited by Lan Dong, McFarland & Co., 2010, pp. 26-45.
Lai, Larissa. “Familiarizing Grist Village: Why I Write Speculative Fiction.” Canadian Literature, no. 240, 2020, pp. 20-39.
—. Slanting I, Imagining We: Asian Canadian Literary Production in the 1980s and 1990s. Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2014.
Leonard, Elisabeth Anne. “Race and Ethnicity in Science Fiction.” The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, edited by Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn, Cambridge UP, 2003, pp. 253-63.
Liljeström, Marianne. “Affect.” The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory, edited by Lisa Disch and Mary Hawkesworth, Oxford UP, 2016, pp. 16-38.
Martín-Lucas, Belén. “Burning Down the Little House on the Prairie: Asian Pioneers in Contemporary North America.” Atlantis, vol. 33, no. 2, 2011, pp. 27-41.
—. “Of Aliens, Monsters, and Vampires: Speculative Fantasy’s Strategies of Dissent (Transnational Feminist Fiction).” Unruly Penelopes and the Ghosts: Narratives of English Canada, edited by Eva Darias-Beautell, Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2012, pp. 107-30.
—. “Posthuman Affect in the Global Empire: Queer Speculative Fictions of Canada.” Beyond “Understanding Canada”: Transnational Perspectives on Canadian Literature, edited by Melissa Tanti, et al., U of Alberta P, 2017, pp. 151-71.
—. “Posthumanist Feminism and Interspecies Affect in Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber.” Atlantis, vol. 38, no. 2, 2017, pp. 105-15.
Sedgwick, Eve K. Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity. Duke UP, 2003.
Terada, Rei. Feeling in Theory: Emotion after the “Death of the Subject.” Harvard UP, 2001.
Torrado-Mariñas, Laura. “Hiromi Goto’s The Kappa Child: When myth destabilizes reality.” Current Trends in Anglophone Studies: Cultural, Linguistic and Literary Research, edited by Javier Ruano-García, et al., Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2011, pp. 255-64.
Hernández González, S. (2024). “A child isn’t born bitter”: (In)human Relations and Monstrous Affects in Hiromi Goto’s The Kappa Child. Canada and Beyond: A Journal of Canadian Literary and Cultural Studies, 13, 51–67. https://doi.org/10.14201/candb.v13i51-67
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