英语专业论文,人物分析论文详例,a brief analysis of the tripmaster monkey,his fake book

1、A brief analysis of the main character Wittman Ah Sing in tripmaster monkey :his fake bookThesis statement:Through the creation of Wittman Ah Sing, the American incarnation of Monkey King, a Chinese American beatnik and the spiritual embodiment of the poet Watt Whitman, Maxine Hong Kingston intends

2、to declare to the American mainstream society that it is wrong to define a person only by his racial traits, people of all races can go across cultural boundaries and racial discrimination is improper.Outline1. Introduction1.1 The development of the Chinese American literature1.2 The images of Chine

3、se Americans in different literary works1.3 Maxine Hong Kingston and The Tripmaster Monkey2. An Analysis of the main character Wittman Ah Sing2.1American incarnation of Monkey King at the present day2.2 Chinese American Beatnik2.3 Spiritual embodiment of Watt Whitman3. Conclusion1. Introduction1.1Th

4、e development of the Chinese American LiteratureOver the last 20 years, the identity of American Chinese literature had been an issue that literary circle cared about. In the 1990s, its influence had spread to many countries all over the world that in America, the term Chinese American, Asian Americ

5、an and Asia-pacific American were used interchangeably and referred to the same object. Chinese American literature and the Asian American literature were not only the relationship of part to the whole but also they reinforced each other. In the white mainstream culture, Chinese American literature

6、was marginalized but compared with other ethnic literature, it took the leading position for its unique historical and cultural background. American literature referred to the literary works about their life experience written by Chinese American writers in English, its development history can be di

7、vided into three stages: initial stage, transitional stage and prosperous stage.From the year 1887 to 1970, it is the initial stage of Chinese American literature. Many literary works, such as When I Was a Boy in China (1887, Chinatown Family (1948, The House That Taiming Built (1963, were used to c

8、onfront the mainstream discourse hegemony. However, their works failed to turn around the situation that American Whites literature dominates the American culture.In the 1970s and 1980s, the outbreak of African American Civil Rights Movement brought about a big change in social and cultural life in

9、America. Chinese American writers began to publicly questioned and censured American mainstream discourse hegemony. They gained the opportunity to revoice cultural differences and racial discrimination. In this period, the most representative of Chinese American works were Chickencoop Chinaman (1972

10、 and The Dragon (1974, with the help of which Chinese American expressed their anger over the racial discrimination and their desire for reconstructing Chinese American cultural tradition. Before long, the autobiographical novel The Woman Warrior (1976 written by Maxine Hong Kingstoncreated a sensat

11、ion in America and Europe. The success of The Woman Warrior marked the beginning that Chinese American literature stepped into American mainstream culture. Such writers as Amy Tan, Gish Jen, David Hwang created a great deal of works and gained all kinds of literary awards. Their works were popular a

12、mong American readers and attracted extensive attention from them, helped release the aphasia of Chinese American literature in mainstream culture.By the late 1980s, Chinese American literature had been gradually accepted by American culture as well as entered the elementary textbooks and high schoo

13、l textbooks. They were not marginalized any longer, they began to be thriving and prosperous. Though nowadays, the racial discrimination in American mainstream society is not so serious, more than one hundred years ago, the impression of Chinese Americans left on American Whites was much stereotyped

14、.1.2. The images of Chinese in different literary worksThe first appearances of Chinese in the texts were about the stereotyped images formed in the American s minds. Driven by the special economical and political purpose, they took an unilateral, extravagant and distorted view to Chinese. Among the

15、 works describing the images of Chinese written by American authors in the turn of the century, such as Almond-eyed: A Story of the Day by Atwell Whitney, A Short and Truthful history of the taking of Oregon and California by the Chinese in the Year A.D.1899. A number of crafty and evil creatures we

16、re created from American author s perspective who even had no contact with Chinese in reality. With the influence of racial discrimination policy, some American journalists revealed Chinatown as the dark and gloomy side of society. In such novels about Chinatown as Willian Norr, Edward Towrsend and

17、Harry M.Johnson, Chinese were described as drunkard, gambler, playboy etc, they were cunning, fake, villainous and heartless. Furthermore, in mainstream literature and culture,the stereotyped image of Chinese can be classified into two kinds: good and bad (Kim, 1982, pp.4-5. For example, Fu Manchu,

18、created by the English writer Sax Rohmer (2001, is typical of bad Chinese image, he is the incarnation of Yellow Peril, an oriental demon of brutality, deception and evil. In order to get what he wants, he even sacrifices the lives of his loved ones. He gambles, smokes opium, organizes the underworl

19、d, rapes white women, which also makes westerners keep away from him. But at the same time, he is clever and competent enough to gain both M.D and Ph.D. He endangers the Western civilization and human race using high-tech tools. Sax Rohmer s description of Fu Manchu seems full of wisdom and creativi

20、ty, he has Shakespeare s forehead wisdom, Satan s face evil and magic, green eyes the typical imagination of Chinese in American mainstream society.On the contrary, Charlie Chan is typical of a good person, the model of the love for racism . Charlie Chan, the character created by American writer Ear

21、l Derr Biggers (2008, is a Chinese inspector. He is obese but agile, who often makes mistakes when speaking in English. He is used to saying Confucius says but seldom refers to Chinese. In short, Charlie Chan is incarnation of justice, he often solves cases successfully and has inevitable conflict w

22、ith criminal gang. He grows a prosperous-looking, does things simply and is filled with wisdom and sense of humor. But Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan have one thing in common, that is, they have been once stereotyped as Chinese man in American mainstream culture, they are short of manliness, they are no

23、nsexual and marginalized. In the description of Chinese man, most of the American intended to put an emphasis on the irreconcilable differences between Chinese and American whites as well as the their favorable conditions in outlook, spirit, intelligence and morality.1.3. Maxine Hong Kingston and Th

24、e tripmaster monkeyMaxine HongKingston, a Chinese American writer born in Stockton, California, America, is aXinhui descendant whose parents immigrated into America early. Although she was born in America, the influence of China got down to her bone. Her works mostly reflect on the life experience o

25、f Chinese immigrants as well as their immigrants descents. Her literary works not only sold well but also gained many awards from American mainstream literary circle. Maxine Hong Kingstons first novel is The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Amog Ghost (1976 , by which she was awarded National Bo

26、ok Critics Circles Award and which helped lay her important foundation in American literary circle. The Woman Warrior is not only a critical point in the ongoing development of the American literary tradition(Zhang , 2007 but also the most well-known works in Chinese American literature(He, 2004. He

27、r second novel is The China man (1980 winning the National Book Award. She has also created one novel, Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (1989, a story depicting a character based on the mythical Chinese character Sun WuKong. Her most recent novel is The Fifth Book of Peace, through which she express

28、ed her wish for bringing peace to the world (He, 2004. The four novels of Maxine Hong Kingston take root in Chinese traditional culture and at the same time characterize Western culture, expressing the requirement for gender equality, racial equality and freedom of writing (He, 2004.In 1989, Maxine

29、Hong Kingston brought out her real sense of novel Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book, which got the award PEN West Award for Fiction. Since Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book was published, it has been translated into many languages and soon became the teaching material in some universities, many critic

30、s also interpreted this novel from multi-angles of sociology, psychology, anthropology. American famous critic Harold Bloom has said that As a writer, Maxine Hong Kingston is 100 times better than Amy Tan , because Maxine Hong Kingston s writing technics is incomparable (Cited in Guo, 2009. Tripmast

31、er Monkey depicts the adventure of Chinese American young man Wittman Ah Sing, he is a versatile youth likefamous poet Watt Whitman. He yearns for liberty and peace, thinks highly of beatnik writers Jack Kerouac, abandons the corrupt custom and concept of capitalist society. He is an anti-tradition,

32、 anti-war and anti-racism hero (Zhou, 2008.Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book takes in reality and dream, life and vision, realism and surrealism, oriental civilization and western civilization, is a masterpiece critically acclaimed and sold well all over the world.Referring to the comments on her nov

33、els from the American mainstream society, Maxine Hong Kingston pointed out the negative effects of the stereotyped Chinese images on the Chinese, she also argued that regarding Chinese as exotic, complex, mysterious race equals to ignoring the similarity in human races (中华读书报, 2005. In many intervie

34、ws, Maxine Hong Kingston told us that when she created and described new ethnic role, she had to struggle to break the prejudice and bias of the readers and book critics. As a result, she decided to create a new novel which is used to challenge and subvert traditional Chinese image (Skenazy & Ma

35、rtin, 1998.In this novel, she molds Whitman Ah Sing, he is anti-traditional, anti-war and anti-racism. Apart from having the characteristic of Monkey King, Ah Sing is also a typical Chinese American beatnik and the embodiment of the American poet Watt Whitman with great spirit of freedom.2. An analy

36、sis of the main character Wittman Ah Sing2.1 American incarnation of monkey king at the present dayWhen shaping Ah Sing, Maxine Hong Kingston put the inner spirit of Sun Wukong, the key character of Journey to the West, into Ah Sing. Journey to the West tells the story about Monkey King s quest for

37、redemption as he accompanied monk Tripitaka to bring the sacred Buddhist scrolls back from India. In Journey to the West , Sun Wukong is a kind of hero filled with6rebellious spirit, sense of justice and the courage to question the authority. In Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book, Maxine Hong Kingston

38、 explained why Chinese Monkey King can appear in her novel.When I began to write about the characters in the 1960s, I felt that the spirit of Chinese Monkey King has come to America. In the story of Journey to the West, the monkey goes to India but in this novel I make him keep on moving into Americ

39、a in the 1960s. It isn t difficult for you to discover that Ah Sing is like a monkey, bringing riots to America society. In all the love-in demonstration and Woodstock assembly, Ah Sing acts as a Monkey King to despise authority. (Skenazy & Martin, 1998, pp. 78-79There are a lot of commons in pe

40、rsonality between Sun Wukong and Ah Sing. Both of them are dissatisfied with the present social system and do whatever they can to resist the current situation. Firstly, they are influenced by different culture, Sun Wukong flies out of a stone which has absorbed the essence of the sun and the moon w

41、hile Ah Sing, as a Chinese American, is profoundly influenced by both Chinese and the American White culture. Secondly, they are alienated and rejected by the mainstream society. Sun Wukong is excluded from the heaven, Ah Sing is regarded as an outsider. Thirdly, their own ability is limited but bot

42、h of them can achieve what they want using different techniques. Faced with the exclusion from the heaven, Sun Wukong created a tremendous uproar in the heavenly palace for his place in the heaven. Similarily, Ah Sing fights for his race with his own unique experience. In La Vieille Maison, when Ah

43、Sing heard someone telling some race jokes, he got up, turned, walked over to that table, step by step, closer and closer. He pointed out his finger at each nose, shouting at them that Don't you tell jokes anymore. Don t let me catch you laughing against any raza again.You tell a gringo joke, wh

44、erever you are, I am coming to get you. Understand? You sabe? 7( Kingston, 1990, p.214In Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book , Maxine Hong Kingston shaped Ah Sing into the American Incarnation of the Monkey King at the present day, from Ah Sing behavior and his idea we can find something of Sun Wukong.

45、 On the one hand, in behavior, Ah Sing is fond of performing imitative actions of Sun Wukong. He also called himself the present-day U.S.A. incarnation of the King of the Monkeys (Kingston,1990, p.33. When he selects his poem to show his talent to Nancy, he jumped around his room, “ dragging his lon

46、g arms and heavy knuckles. His head turned from one side to side like a quick questioning monkey (Kingston,1990, p.32. On the other hand, Ah Sing acts as Sun Wukong with seventy-two changes, he is a poet, playwright, talkshow player. He is a great storyteller, organizer of a drama club. He is a wort

47、hless son in his mother eyes while his wife sees him as her guardian. Ah Sing s free shifting freely from one role to another makes it difficult for people to see him as a rigid person as Fu Manchu or Charlie Chan. Ah Sing, the main character in this novel, it s an inversion of the former stereotype

48、d image.Ah Sing is like Sun Wukong, the latter fights against the monster until the end of his life and the former fights against the racism and orientalism in Western society. As a graduate of English major, he failed to find a job he wants and had to work as a clerk in a toy store. This situation

49、is similar to that of Sun Wukong, who is sent to guard the stable. They are both disappointed. In order to let off steam, Ah Sing deliberately makes an electric monkey ride on the back of a blond-hair Barbie. It is easy for us to find that the blond-hair Barbie is compared to the white woman, and th

50、e electric monkey Ah Sing himself, a colored and rebellious man. By doing this, the electric monkey bullies the Barbie, Ah Sing scorns the ban on miscegenation. At the same time, he challenges the stereotyped image of Chinese, he wants to claim that Chinese man is not so feminine as they have imagin

51、ed.83.2 Chinese American beatnikMaxine Hong Kingston describes Ah Sing as a beat youth living in California in the 1960s. The novel is set in San Francisco. It is known to us all that the most famous and largest Chinatown is situated in San Francisco but in this novel, San Francisco seems not so imp

52、ortant. San Francisco has long been the centre of anti-culture, which is what we need to pay attention to. The term beatnik comes from a literary genre arising in America after World War Two. The anti-traditional and anti-authoritarian poets and novelists as Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William Bur

53、roughs are the representitives of the beatnik. Beatnik were discontent with the reality that they lived under the high pressure from McCarthyism, so they decided to protest it in a refined way. They wore fancy dress, rejected traditional idea, got tired of studying and working .Their long-term livin

54、g at the bottom of the society helped them form special group and develop their own philosophy. According to the definition of beatnik, we can discover that undoubtedly Ah Sing is one of the typical beatnik.In Tripmaster Monkey:His Fake Book , there is an obvious change in Ah Sing s attitude towards

55、 beatnik during his graduation from college. Being a college student, Ah Sing argees with the value and life style of beatnik. When present at the trial to Allan Ginsburg, he was deeply impressed by the beatnik scholar, he felt that he has found his listener and partner. The muster of famous poet ha

56、d blown Wittman away everybody friends with everybody else, a gang of poets. He, poor monkey, was yet looking for others of his kind (Kingston, 1990, p.20. Also, Ah Sing led a life as like the beatnik, he smoked marijuana, enjoyed sex, and became crazy about jazz. Ah Sing loved living an unfettered

57、life, so even if he was fired by the shop, he didn t feel frustrated but free. In the tenderloin, depressed and unemployed, the jobless Wittman Ah Sing felt a kind of bad freedom ( Kingston, 1990, p.67. He loiters on the street in San Francisco, like we re9Kerouac s people, tripping along the street

58、 (Kingston, 1990, p.69. After his graduation from college, Ah Sing began to have doubts about the life style of beatnik and took a new look at their value and lifestyle. He said to a Yale poet, “ I used to dope, I don t dope anymore. I have seen all there is to see on dope; The trip have been repeat

59、ing themselves, looping like Dead of Night. Change one s head, change the universe. The paranoia was driving me nuts, however. Too ripped. I don't like getting wasted anymore (Kingston, 1990, p.48. Meanwhile, He noticed that Kerouac, King of the Beat, called the painter and actor Victor Wong twinkling little Chinese and became increasingly aware of Kelouac s discrimination against Chinese American,