Never Let Me Go: Home, Family, and Confinement in Umma
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Justine Trinh
Justine Trinh is an English Literature PhD student at Washington State University. She graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a BA in Asian American Studies and Classics with an emphasis in Classical Civilizations and a BS in Mathematics. She then went onto receive her MA in Asian American Studies, making her the first student to graduate from UCI Asian American Studies 4+1 BA/MA program. She currently serves as Book Club Leader on the Board of theSoapberry Review, a journal for reviews of Asian American literature. Her research interests include Asian American Literature, Critical Refugee Studies, family and trauma, and forced departure and disownment.
Abstract
Inderpal Grewal states, “the idea of home is rife with contradictions including desires for protection, the violence of protection, a haven as well as imprisonment and enclosure” (2017: 122). Home is a place of security but to be protected, one must be tethered to the home, which invites harm onto its members. The 2022 horror film, Umma, illustrates the multiple layers in which the members of the family are confined to the home, and how each member enacts violence onto each other. As a child, Amanda attempts to leave the home and her mother, Umma, behind, as she does not understand that Umma herself is also trapped in the home because she does not speak English. Umma cannot form connections within American society or leave the home due to language barriers, which means Amanda is her only form of human connection. However, when Amanda is caught, she is violently punished, which results in unresolved trauma she cannot escape. Although as an adult, Amanda is physically free of her Umma, Umma continues to haunt her even after her death. Amanda cannot escape her mother’s hold and reenacts the same toxic behaviors onto her own daughter, who also dreams of escape, illustrating an intergenerational confinement that reinscribes itself onto the next generation. This paper argues that home and family are places of both physical and mental confinement, where love and violence are interchangeable concepts that are used to justify family member’s imprisonment.
Abstract
Inderpal Grewal states, “the idea of home is rife with contradictions including desires for protection, the violence of protection, a haven as well as imprisonment and enclosure” (2017: 122). Home is a place of security but to be protected, one must be tethered to the home, which invites harm onto its members. The 2022 horror film, Umma, illustrates the multiple layers in which the members of the family are confined to the home, and how each member enacts violence onto each other. As a child, Amanda attempts to leave the home and her mother, Umma, behind, as she does not understand that Umma herself is also trapped in the home because she does not speak English. Umma cannot form connections within American society or leave the home due to language barriers, which means Amanda is her only form of human connection. However, when Amanda is caught, she is violently punished, which results in unresolved trauma she cannot escape. Although as an adult, Amanda is physically free of her Umma, Umma continues to haunt her even after her death. Amanda cannot escape her mother’s hold and reenacts the same toxic behaviors onto her own daughter, who also dreams of escape, illustrating an intergenerational confinement that reinscribes itself onto the next generation. This paper argues that home and family are places of both physical and mental confinement, where love and violence are interchangeable concepts that are used to justify family member’s imprisonment.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Acknowledgments 5
- Table of Contents 7
- Confinement Studies in American Popular Culture 1
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Part I: Confinement Narratives on the Screen
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Cinema and TV Series
- The Individual vs. the Institution: Narratives of Confinement in New Hollywood Cinema 15
- Trapped in Bluebeard’s Castle: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast as a Self-Contradictory Story of Empowerment and Imprisonment 31
- (Dis)ableing the Confinement: Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water and Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God 47
- Transformative Power of Confinement and Subversion of Identity in The Experiment (2010) 63
- “Where the City Started and the Suburbs Ended”: The (Sub)urban Confinement of Post-Industrial America in David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows 87
- Never Let Me Go: Home, Family, and Confinement in Umma 103
- Confinement and Consciousness: Exploring the ‘ Nomadic Consciousness’ in Maid 117
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Documentaries
- Incarceration Documentaries after the Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography 133
- Dream in Place: Understanding Confinement through the Tactics of Fiction in Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack 151
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Part II: Confinement Narratives from/about American Prisons
- Claudia Jones and Angela Davis: Literature in Confinement 171
- Confined to the Margins: Necropolitics, American Identity, and Racial Separation in Assata by Assata Shakur 185
- Into the Lone Star Labyrinth: Texas Prison System Reflects The Death Gate Cycle Prison 201
- Our Time on the Rock: Narrating Voluntary Confinement in Tommy Orange’s There There 217
- “Have You Ever Seen a More Focused Killing Machine?” The Extreme Spectacle of Carceral Punishment in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars 235
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Part III: Confinement Narratives within Performances
- Taylor Swift’s American Retreat: Covid, Cardigans, and Confinement in folklore 253
- In The Devil's Grip: Competing Narratives of Confinement in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X Opera 269
- Index
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Acknowledgments 5
- Table of Contents 7
- Confinement Studies in American Popular Culture 1
-
Part I: Confinement Narratives on the Screen
-
Cinema and TV Series
- The Individual vs. the Institution: Narratives of Confinement in New Hollywood Cinema 15
- Trapped in Bluebeard’s Castle: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast as a Self-Contradictory Story of Empowerment and Imprisonment 31
- (Dis)ableing the Confinement: Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water and Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God 47
- Transformative Power of Confinement and Subversion of Identity in The Experiment (2010) 63
- “Where the City Started and the Suburbs Ended”: The (Sub)urban Confinement of Post-Industrial America in David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows 87
- Never Let Me Go: Home, Family, and Confinement in Umma 103
- Confinement and Consciousness: Exploring the ‘ Nomadic Consciousness’ in Maid 117
-
Documentaries
- Incarceration Documentaries after the Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography 133
- Dream in Place: Understanding Confinement through the Tactics of Fiction in Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack 151
-
Part II: Confinement Narratives from/about American Prisons
- Claudia Jones and Angela Davis: Literature in Confinement 171
- Confined to the Margins: Necropolitics, American Identity, and Racial Separation in Assata by Assata Shakur 185
- Into the Lone Star Labyrinth: Texas Prison System Reflects The Death Gate Cycle Prison 201
- Our Time on the Rock: Narrating Voluntary Confinement in Tommy Orange’s There There 217
- “Have You Ever Seen a More Focused Killing Machine?” The Extreme Spectacle of Carceral Punishment in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars 235
-
Part III: Confinement Narratives within Performances
- Taylor Swift’s American Retreat: Covid, Cardigans, and Confinement in folklore 253
- In The Devil's Grip: Competing Narratives of Confinement in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X Opera 269
- Index
