Displaced and in No Place: The Study of Diasporic Idealism and Memory in “At the Edge of the World”

This paper is an extensive attempt at analyzing “At the Edge of the World”, an expressive short story in an exceptionally eloquent collection written by Krys Lee (۲۰۱۲). The story portrayed the life of a Korean family, who had involuntarily yet forcefully been far from home, residing in the United States and struggling to find a place as a home within the new land. Despite the apparent unifying peaceful moments of their interactions, the family members are involved in an unseen trauma of displacement in addition to the anxiety of encountering their new version of self. Utilizing the concept of displacement with reference to the field of diaspora, the paper primarily emphasizes the gravity of the concept of displacement as both a shaper and a shifter of the individuals’ identity since home, unequivocally, plays a determining role. Once an individual deserts home where one feels insecure, one’s search for a place becomes an insatiable dream to fulfill and an ideal to reach. The traumatic memory of the background never diminishes. It, instead, accumulates the overwhelming experiences of displacement in an unforgettable manner. On the one hand, the ideal meaning of life and identity rests in the image of migrating and finding a new home; and, on the other hands, this idealism is entrapped and leads to psychological damages which might bring about a family’s internal devastation and desolation.