RACIAL DISCRIMINATION PORTRAYED IN THE PAPER MENAGERIE BY KEN LIU

Abstract

The Paper Menagerie is a short story tells the story of a Chinese-American boy named Jack who has a Chinese immigrant mother. This research reveals a character portrait of Jack and his mother who received racial treatment from the environment in which they lived. The mother of Jack, being Chinese and Jack being of Chinese descent, faced discrimination both physically and mentally. This research was conducted based on the discrimination perspective proposed by Newman. This research uses a qualitative descriptive research method with the material object of a short story by Ken Liu entitled The Paper Menagerie. Based on the sociological theory of literary and cultural studies, this research reveals that "The Paper Menagerie" is not just a story about magical origami, but also displays a reflection of social reality, where racial discrimination and the identity crisis are still relevant issues. This research succeeded in finding several forms of discrimination from story narratives. Racial discrimination is divided into physical abuse and verbal expression are the main topics in the research. Discrimination occurs and leaves an impact and influence in the form of a lack of identity crisis on the main character. The portrait of the main character's identity crisis can be found and analyzed in the short story narrative text.