Resistance to Neo-colonialism in Ruth Ozeki’s Novel My Year of Meat

Abstract

This research is a study of Japanese-American novelist Ruth Ozeki’s novel My Year of Meats as the critique of neo-colonialistic vision. It focuses basically on three post-colonial concerns of the novelist: extension of American meat market to Japan with idealized image of America in media representation, neo-colonial management of the environment of Asian countries to gain profit and subversion of the colonial image of cannibalism. The protagonist, Jane, works as a documentarian making documentaries to promote beef and American values and cooking methods to the housewives of Japan. The export of American values and food culture is responsible to deteriorate not only the cultural proceedings of the Japanese housewives but it also shows the deteriorating impacts on their health. As Jane visits America to shoot the episodes of the show, she sees violence embedded in American culture and a case of cannibalism in America itself. She listens to a bartender’s story about two people eating stew of human head and a doctor’s dealing to buy fresh human skull in Wyoming that shows the practice of cannibalism practiced in American people themselves. Akiko, a Japanese housewife follows the recipes as Jane suggests in various episodes, her reproductive health deteriorates due to the hormones used in beef. Thus, the novel presents the adverse impact on the Japanese culture and criticizes the neo-colonial marketing of culture as harmful to the Japanese culture.