Chinese American Women’s Quest for Identity in The Woman Warrior(毕业论文).doc

本科毕业设计（论文）诚信声明本人声明：我所呈交的本科毕业设计（论文）是我个人在导师指导下对四年专业知识而进行的研究工作及全面的总结。尽我所知，除了文中特别加以标注和致谢中所罗列的内容以外，论文中创新处不包含其他人已经发表或撰写的研究成果，也不包含为获得北京化工大学或其它教育机构的学位或证书而已经使用过的材料。与我一同完成毕业设计（论文）的同学对本课题所做的任何贡献均已在文中做了明确的说明并表示了谢意。若有不实之处，本人承担一切相关责任。本人签名： 日期： 年 月 日本科生毕业设计（论文）任务书设计（论文）题目： Chinese American Womens Quest for Identity in The Woman Warrior 学院： 文法学院 专业： 英语 班级： 英语0701 学生： xxxx 指导教师（含职称）： xxxxxx（讲师） 专业负责人： xxxxxx 1 设计（论文）的主要任务及目标主要任务：用女权主义理论分析汤婷婷女勇士中华裔女性的自身的属性追求。目标：加深对华裔文学作品中华裔女性的困境及其对属性追寻的解读。2设计（论文）的基本要求和内容基本要求：1）英语5500字以上； 2）小四字体打印； 3）字体为Times New Roman。内容：分析和探讨华裔女性在性别歧视及文化冲突的双重压迫下对自我身份属性的探索与追求。3主要参考文献Huntley, E.D. Maxine Hong Kingston: A Critical CompanionM. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001.Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior. Memoirs of a Girlhood Among GhostsM. London: Picador, 1981.白丽. 探寻女勇士中的女性主义J. 语文学刊：外语教育教学. 2018 (3): 22-244进度安排设计（论文）各阶段名称起 止 日 期1选题2018/102收集资料、进行文献综述2018/12-2011/33开题报告2018/124初稿2018/45定稿2018/5-2018/6注：一式4份：学院、指导教师各1份、学生2份：毕业设计（论文）及答辩评分手册各一份 Chinese American Womens Quest for Identity in The Woman WarriorIs submitted byXie YuWeitoThe English DepartmentIn Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor ArtsSupervised by Sheng HaiyanBeijing University of Chemical TechnologyJune, 2011中文摘要美国华裔女作家汤亭亭于1976年发表了代表作女勇士，奠定了作者在美国文学界的地位。在女勇士中，汤亭亭以独特的女性视角,生动记载了华裔妇女在美的心路历程，重新审视了华裔妇女的生存状态及内心世界。本文以女勇士为研究对象，旨在深入分析和探讨华裔女性在性别歧视及文化冲突的双重压迫下对自我身份属性的探索与追求。本文首先通过分析主人公亲身经历以及听闻的种种女性歧视现象，揭露华裔妇女所遭受的不公正性别待遇，论述在倡导男权中心主义的父权制社会，华裔妇女深受性别迫害的事实。接着本文主要探讨文化冲突对华裔女性造成的困扰。由于特殊的身份背景,华裔妇女对她们的祖籍地中国以及她们的所在地美国，或是暗藏在之后的两种不同文化有着复杂的情感。一方面,她们对本族裔误解重重由此造成对中国文化的疏远；另一方面,她们极力融入美国主流文化却又遭到排斥和边缘化。华裔妇女身陷两难境地,对她们的身份提出质疑。最后文章论述了华裔女姓在困境中不屈不挠，勇于挑战性别歧视，化解文化冲突，追寻自我价值的精神。主人公借助花木兰，蔡琰的故事,为华裔妇女在陌生世界中力求生存树立了榜样。然而正如花木兰，蔡琰一样,华裔妇女最终超越了性别，种族，实现了她们的精神成长。结论部分总结了华裔妇女精神成长的艰难历程。在消除性别歧视及种族歧视的过程中，华裔妇女挣脱了精神枷锁，实现了她们作为华裔妇女自我身份的寻求。关键词：美国华裔女性 性别歧视 文化冲突 身份追求 AbstractMaxine Hong Kingston plays a significant role in Chinese American literature. As a Chinese-American woman as well as a feminist, she depicts the life experience of Chinese American women and explores their inner heart as well as their quest in her famous memoir The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts. This thesis adopts the theory of gynocriticism to study Maxine Hong Kingstons The Woman Warrior. The study will focus on Chinese American womens quest for identity they deserve and the painful efforts they make under the double pressions of sexual discrimination and culture conflicts. First, it discusses the sexual discrimination the protagonist experiences by herself and learns from her mothers telling stories, thus showing the sexual unfairness Chinese American suffers. Then it talks in details about the culture conflicts which have caught them into dilemma. Because of their special cultural background, they have complex feelings towards China and America, as well as the cultures behind two countries. They feel strange to the Chinese culture because of misunderstanding on one hand, and try hard to receive American culture but always get confused on the other. Stuck in such a dilemma makes Chinese American women reconsider the identity they need to deserve. Therefore, at the last part of the thesis, Chinese American womens pursuit of identity through their effort is highlighted. By retelling the stories of Fa Mu Lan and Ts an Yen, the protagonist finds her courage to resist against sexual discrimination and reconcile culture conflicts. Just as Fa Mu Lan and Tsan, Chinese American women finally get spiritually free and have achieved their identity as women warrior through self-reconstruction.Key words: Chinese American Women sexual discrimination culture conflicts quest for identity Contents1. Introduction12. The influence of sexual discrimination33. Culture conflicts which Chinese American women faced with63.1. Chinese American womens dilemma in American society73.1.1. Chinese American womens estrangement from Chinese culture83.1.2. Feeling of strangeness in American society93.1.3. Confusion between collectivism and individualism103.1.4. Incomprehension between mother and daughter124. Chinese American womens pursuit of identity and self-reconstruction134.1. Chinese heritage reflected in excellent women in ancient China144.2. Pursuit of identity of the first generation: Brave Orchid164.3. Pursuit of identity of the second generation: Kinston185. Conclusion20Endnotes23Bibliography25Acknowledgements271. Introduction Maxine Hong Kingston, as one of the most significant Chinese American writers, has made great contribution to feminist movement with her literature works, among which is her masterpiece: The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts. Crowned the best nonfiction book by the National Book Critics Circle in 1976, The Woman Warrior mainly describes the authors own experience as a Chinese American and as a woman, and discusses how her gender and ethnicity affect the lives of Chinese American women. By blending autobiography with old Chinese folktales and thus exposing the typical problems confronted by Chinese American women such as cultural conflicts, racial and sexual discriminations as well as the problem of interaction between Chinese-born and American-born generations, Kingston tries to dig out Chinese Americans, especially Chinese American womens values and their own identity.Maxine Hong Kingstons view on Chinese American womens quest for identity and on feminism in her representative work The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts has aroused interest of many reviewers. According to E.D. Huntley, several themes can be dig out from the novel which include: “silence (both gendered and racially constituted); necessity for speech; the discovery of voice; the construction of identity and the search for self-realization; the mother-daughter relationship and the conflicts that it engenders; memory; acculturation and biculturalism; and cultural alienation.” 1 For reviewer Miriam Greenspan, Maxine Hong Kingston captures “the pain of an American-born child who inevitably reject the expectations and authority of her family in favor of the values of the new land” 2. Linda B. Hall describes the book as “remarkable in its insights into the plight of individuals pulled between two cultures”; 3 and Susan Currier writes in Dictionary of Literary Biography that The Woman Warrior is a personal narrative that represents Kingstons effort “to reconcile American and Chinese female identities”. 4 However, since its publication in 1976, The Woman Warrior has maintained a vexed reception history that both attests to its popularity and questions it.5 Apart from praises the book received for it expresses female anger, many reviewers criticize it for its misrepresenting of Chinese American women and reinforcing stereotype in the name of feminism. Sau-ling Wong perceives Kingstons Orientalist effect 6 to be the result of Kingstons failure to critique patriarchal values or institutional racism, resulting in misconceptions about Chinese culture and Chinese Americans. She also points out, “According to Kinstons critics, the most pernicious of the stereotypes which might be supported by The Woman Warrior is that of Chinese American men as sexist”. 7 Benjamin Tong openly calls it a “fashionably feminist work with white acceptance in mind.”8 Reviewer Michael T. Malloy thought the book to have an exotic setting, but deemed it too mainstream American feminist, dealing with only the Me and Mom genre in her book Biography of Maxine Hong Kingston.9 These critics on Kingstons feminism are always made based on the view of culture authenticity and with the idea of foreignness and nativeness, most of which do not take the writers growing background into consideration. Actually, as one of the second generation of Chinese American immigrants, Kingston gains a mixed cultural background through her efforts of culture reconciliation. This is also the reason for her reconstruction of the traditional Chinese stories. Besides, living under the double pressure of sexual discrimination and cultural conflicts gives Kingston a more unique insight to the idea of feminism. What she tries to express in The Women Warrior is her quest for identity as a Chinese American woman who not only suffers from sexual discrimination but also confronts with culture conflicts. Its this complex cultural background that has more influence on Kingstons feminism idea than the gender oppression of the society.Therefore, this thesis intends to dig out how Kingston reveals Chinese American womens quest for identity and the painful efforts they make in the background of sexual discrimination and cultural conflicts, and therefore explore Maxine Hong Kingstons unique view on feminism as a Chinese American woman. 2. The influence of sexual discriminationSexual discrimination, according to The Oxford Dictionary, refers to the unfair attitudes or treatments on people, especially women, because of their sex. The phenomenon can be seen in many aspect of life in both American and Chinese societies. Especially in Kingstons times, the first immigrant generation was greatly influenced by the patriarchy idea that men were superior to women of old Chinese society. Therefore, being a daughter in an immigrant family, the narrator girl in the book, which is Maxine Hong Kingston herself, discovers early in life the glaring sexual discrimination exercised in the Chinatown community where she grew up. Her discovery is further verified by the messages implied in many of her mothers stories. It is her own life experiences in China town and other womens experiences told by the narrators mother that give her the knowledge that Chinese American women are suffering a lot from sexual discrimination.Born in 1940 in a Chinese laundryman family in Stockton, California, the protagonist spent her childhood in the Chinese immigrant community. During her early years, she began to notice the gender discrimination attitudes within her community. Since she is the oldest of six children, three of whom are boys, it is not long before she finds out that sexual discriminations start at the very moment of birth: while the birth of a boy occasions a joyful celebration that lasts as long as one month, the birth of a girl passes by unnoticed. For instance, when a boy was born to Maxines Third Grand Uncle who already had three girls, the boys parents and his great grandfather gave him a full-month party, inviting all emigrant neighbors; moreover, they bought him toys, new diapers, new plastic pants. As for girls, no parties were given in their name, and they had to play with used toys, homemade diapers, and bread bags. Besides, while willing to buy the boy giant toy trucks and a bicycle, the father would not purchase a typewriter for the girls, who he believed could be clerk-typists. Finally, before the advent of the boy, the girls great grand father used to call them “maggots” at every meal, a name suggestive of their being good for nothing but eating up food.Sexual discrimination can also be seen in Maxine Hongs own house. She remember that their parents are ashamed to take she and her sister out together, for the emigrant villagers will shake their heads at them. “one girland another girl,” they may say. And whenever her great uncle went shopping, he would take only the boys along with him and buy them sweets and new toys. 10“Come, children. Hurry. Hurry. Who wants to go out with Great-Uncle?” On Saturday mornings my great-uncle, the ex-river pirate, did the shopping. “Get your coats, whoevers coming.”“Im coming. Im coming. Wait for me.”When he heard girls voice, he turned on us and roared, “No girls!” and left my sisters and me hanging our coats back up, not looking at one another.11Apparently, the word “children” in her great uncles mind only means “boys”, and “girls” are definitely something inferior to “boys” that even have no right to go out with him. By roaring “no girls” her great uncle shows his prejudice toward girls which gives the protagonist and her sister such a disappointment and anger.Behind these sexual discriminations lies the deep rooted concept that “there is an outward tendency in females” 12 or “When you are raising children for strangers.” 13. Therefore, when Maxine told her mother that she got straight As, her mother inevitably interpreted it as “she was getting straight As for the good of future husbands family, not own”14. Its this kind of conventional idea that a woman, once married, becomes a member of her husbands family that has given rise to a pervasive anti-female trend as reflected in sayings like “Girls are maggots in rice.” “It is more profitable to raise geese than daughters,” and “Feeding girls is feeding cowbirds”15. By comparing girls to maggots that eat up rice or cowbirds that build no nests but lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, the emigrant community has denied Chinese American females humanity on the one hand and stripped them of their self-worth on the other.Apart from what she witnessed and experienced in Chinatown community, her mothers stories are also filled with sense of sexual descrimination, which have imprinted in her mind a vivid picture of China, where women were outrageously oppressed. When talking stories about her life in China, Brave Orchid told Maxine how, after graduating from To Keung School of Midwifery, she purchased a slave girl in the market and trained her to be her nurse. In this case, Maxine cannot help herself to connecting the story of girls as sellable items. Brave Orchid also tells her of the inhuman practice of killing girl babies at the birth beds: “the midwife or a relative would take the back of a babys head in her hand and turn her face into the ashes” 16. Among these stories, which impressed Maxine most is the story of the unnamed paternal aunt, who got pregnant long after her newly-wed husband had sailed for the Gold Mountain which was an embodiment of alienation from identity, self, family, society and nature at that time. The family remained silent about this fact, but the people of the village had noticed it, too. One night just before the due date of the babys birth, the villagers wearing masks, raided the house of the no name woman as punishment. They destroyed the familys crop, slaughtered their livestock, broke their household goods, and ruined their supplies. During the raid, the family could only stand and stare in disbelief. The woman gave birth in the pigsty that same night and Brave Orchid found her sister-in-law and the baby the next day drowned in the family well. This story reminds Maxine again of the brutally inequitable treatment of women in traditional Chinese society. And she also learns from the cautionary tale that in male oriented Chinese culture a womans sexual mannerism poses a threat to the “roundness” of the community and that a woman is not supposed to indulge herself in personal whims.By telling these stories, the mother tries to put the idea that a girl should grow up as a wife and a slave and should behave good and obedient into the daughters mind. Such an idea, which is teemed with sexism, produces in the protagonist a mixed felling of righteous indignation and ineffable fear. She tends to express her anger either by refusing to do the domestic work which a conventional Chinese girl is expected to do, or by thrashing on the floor or screaming very hard. Meanwhile, she also harbors the fear that if she fails to justify herself worthy of eating the food, her parents might sell her upon their return to China, just like the girl in her mothers story. Living with sexual discrimination and with the fears brought by it is a painful experience to Maxine as well as other Chinese American women. Such experience helps the girl gain their gender consciousness earlier and begin to think about seeking breathing space out side of her “home”.3. Culture conflicts which Chinese American women faced withAlong with the sexual discrimination, culture conflict is also a very big problem faced by Chinese American women. Amy Ling explains how “Minority parents own fear of losing their cultural heritage is intensified by the fear of losing their children to the foreign culture, and therefore they insist with greater vehemence on their childrens acceptance of family traditions and “Old World ties”(the culture and tradition of their motherland)17. Therefore Brave Orchid in The Woman Warrior tries to raise her children as if there were no ocean between her little circle of family members and the rest of her village in China, as if they were fully participating members of the community “back home.” However, no matter how hard the first generation try to keep their Chinese heritage on their children and to mould their daughters into an ideal Chinese girl, they have to make their living in American, a totally different country with completely alien cultures, and have their children speak English as well as receive Americanized education which advocates democracy, freedom, equality, and the most important, individualism. Hence, for these second generation Chinese Americans who have to be imposed Chinese culture on them by their parents at home and marked American ideas outside, neither Chinese nor American culture can be absolutely defined as their native culture, so they find themselves estrange from Chinese culture on one hand and caught in a dilemma in the American society on the other. The subtitle of The Woman Warrior, Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, expresses this kind of strangen