AnanalysisofheCuluralDilemmainTheWomanWarrior》_开题报告

Literary critics and scholars did not cease to debate on Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior since it was first published in 1967. The researches are not only crucial to the understanding of the Chinese American literature, but it also has an effect on the culture. 

Notwithstanding the fact that the book has earned a great reputation and a large number of American readers, some critics argue that it is only a deliberate misrepresentation of Chinese traditions due to the author’s unfamiliarity with traditional Chinese stories and folklores. According to Zhang Min (2007), the purpose of Kingston’s rewriting of the legends and myths that are most appreciated by the Westerners is only to cater to their very interests and fantasies. The opinion is also shared by a lot of other critics. As stated by Elaine Kim (1982), the power-hungry despot, the helpless heathen, the sensuous dragon lady, the comical loyal servant, and the pudgy, desexed detective who talks about Confucius are all part of the standard American image of Asian, that is to say, Kingston has not depicted the real Chinese, but those that exist in the Americans’ mind. What’s more, the Chinese-American critic Chin (1991) “accused Kingston of reinforcing white fantasies about Chinese Americans.” The famous reviewer Benjamin Tong (1997), one of Chin’s contemporaries, regards Kingston’s writing as a “fashionable feminist work with white acceptance in mind” (Tong, 1997). Therefore, Zhang Min firmly believes that for historical and political reasons, western people are enthusiastic about the traditional culture of China and interested in reading about China after 1949. However, I hold the opinion that what the critics talked about is the consequence of Kingston’s writing of The Woman Warrior, but not the reason why she wrote the book. The misrepresentation arises not because of the author’s limited knowledge of Chinese culture, nor her intention to satisfy the Americans’ curiosity. Instead, it is a reflection of the Chinese Americans’ search for self-identity in the “bicultural situation,” and, as Helena Grice noted:” they function as ‘ambassadors’” (Grice, 2001, p.7).

Apart from Grice, some other scholars have carried out a lot of analyses of the self-identity theory in The Woman Warrior. Tang Rong (2007) proposes the idea that as the Chinese Americans live not only on the margin of the traditional Chinese culture but also that of the white’s society, the can neither go back to Chinese culture nor be involved in the American society, thus the two cultures crash in them and they have to struggle to regain self-identity in the double-marginalized society. 

A recent study by Zhang Yanjun (2008) indicates that Kingston’s theme of bridging cultures by the way of crossing cultural boundaries is meaningful with great theoretical and practical implications in that it helps strive for social equality and human emancipation. Zhang believes that The Woman Warrior is a self-fashioning from the point of view of culture. Consequently, the cultural significance is much greater than historic meaning of the book. I agree with his viewpoint, but I doubt his claim of the author’s effort to maintain social equity and human emancipation. I think it’s farfetched and does not make sense.

The racists and feminists also take an active role in the interpretation of The Woman Warrior. For Peng Tao (2006), he thinks that by describing what women have suffered in the racist and masculine society of America, Kingston is denouncing racism and gender discrimination and on behalf of all the Chinese Americans, she is asking for the right of speech in the United State. As a result, she has made a great contribution to the racial and feminist movement.

It has also been argued that the theory of cultural identity will help people understand The Woman Warrior and the Chinese American works. By using cultural identity, Hu Chunmei (2005) thinks that the growth of the little girl in the book is actually a metaphor of all the Chinese Americans’ growth and that it helps create Chinese Americans’ own myths.   

    Although Kingston’s The Woman Warrior has been analyzed from different perspectives, however, the researches mentioned are not comprehensive. In this dissertation, the “in-between space” theory proposed by Homi Bhabha (1994) will be applied to explain the peculiar cultural phenomena in the book.

•二、^范文提纲

1. Introduction

2. The previous interpretation of The Woman Warrior

2.1 The misunderstanding of the previous critics on The Woman Warrior

2.2 Other supporters’ views on the cultural identity

3. Analysis of the rewriting in the novel

3.1 The rewriting of the traditional Chinese stories

3.2 The reason of the rewriting

4. The application of the third space theory in the cultural dilemma

4.1 The definition of the third space

4.2 How the third space theory is applied into the book

4.3 The results Kingston gets from the rewriting of the stories

5. Conclusion

三、参考文献

著作：

Bhabha Homi. (1994). The Location of Culture. London: Reutledge.

Elaine H. Kim. (1982). Asian American literature: An introduction to the writings and their social context. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 

Frank Chin. (1991). An anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American literature. New York: A Meridian Book.

Helena Grice, Candida Hepworth, Maria Lauret & Martin Padget. (2001). Beginning ethnic American literature. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Kingston, Maxine H. The Woman Warrior.: Memoirs of a childhood among ghosts. New York: Vantage, 1989.

Zhang Min. (2007, July). Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior: Misrepresentation of Chinese traditional culture and its relationship with movies. Sino-US English Teaching, 50-55.

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