NAO’S UNHOMELINESS IN RUTH OZEKI’S A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING

The purpose of this study is to find unhomeliness phenomenon and the triggers in Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being. Bhabha’s notion of unhomeliness is used as the main theory to analyze the novel. Stuart Hall’s cultural identity and the other theory are used as the supporting theory to find out the triggers of Nao’s unhomeliness.
This study applies descriptive qualitative design by Miles and Huberman. The source of data is a novel by Ruth Ozeki entitled A Tale for the Time Being which is published in 2013. The data are taken from the characters’ utterances and the narrator’s narration related to the research questions which described the phenomenon of unhomeliness and the trigger of it. The analysis of the novel is by gathering the data, interpreting the data, and drawing the conclusion.
The result of the study shows that Ruth Ozeki portrayed Nao’s unhomeliness in various ways: feeling lost, hatred, and strange. The main trigger of Nao’s unhomeliness is cultural identity conflict. The other triggers are bullying, and cultural differences. Nao’s cultural identity conflict happened because of the different perspective between her collective members in Sunnyvale and the collective members in Tokyo. Furthermore, most of the society in her circle rejected her identity and bullied her physically and orally. The different culture of Japan and America also became the other reason of Nao’s unhomeliness until she decides to commit suicide.