On The Cultural Identities Of Different Characters In The Valley Of Amazement

Amy Tan is a well-known Chinese American writer who always writes Chinese-American mothers and daughters living in America in her novels.However,The Valley of Amazement published in 2013 breaks her usual writing mode and sets the writing background in the early 20 th century in China.At the same time,the main characters have been replaced by a Western mother and her half-blood daughter.This thesis intends to research the identities of different characters in The Valley of Amazement from the perspective of cultural identity based on the theory of postcolonialism.The thesis consists of 3 parts: introduction,body and conclusion.The first part gives an introduction to Amy Tan and The Valley of Amazement,presents a review of recent studies on the novel both at home and abroad,analyzes the research motivation and research significance,and also provides an explanation about cultural identity.The second part includes two chapters.The first chapter studies the gender identities of some female characters.In feudal China where men hold the dominant position,women have been marginalized as the Otherfor a long time,but the oppressiondifferent women suffer differs,so the women characters are divided into three categories in the research.The first category is the courtesans.Since they have been plagued by men for quite a long time,they are numb to their sufferings and even accept self-objectification.But as time changes,they begin to wake up and change their own destiny through recessive resistance.Wives and concubines belong to the second category.Because of the restraints of women like Three Obediences and Four Virtues in patriarchal society,they are used to submitting to their husbands.However,when the oppression surpasses their endurance,they finally begin to fight for their independence.The third kind is the mothers.According to whether their social identities and ethical identitiesare unified or not,the mothers are classified into three types: those with both social and ethical identities,those with ethical but no social identities and those with social but no ethical identities.In the process of identity construction of all the three kinds,a mother’s relationship with her daughter goes from disharmony to reconciliation.The second chapter studies the cultural attributes attached to the ethnic identities of different characters.The ethnic identities are researched from 3 parts: the Westerners represented by Americans,the Chinese and the hybrids.There are two types of Westerners.One is the Americans who have been living in China,with Lulu as a representative.Lulu cannot maintain her colonial authority and shows cultural hybridity.The other type is the Westerners living in their own countries,with John Minturn as a representative.Numerous Chinese treasures have been looted during the period from 19 th century to 20 th century as the result of colonial invasion and oppression,which objectively causes the output of Chinese culture to the west,changing the Westerners’ orientalist prejudice to Chinato some extent.The Chinese characters are also sorted into two groups.One is the diasporas who live in America because of studying abroad or immigration.On one hand,they stick to Chinese culture and on the other hand,they have to try to accept American culture.As the Chinese culture and American culture intermingle with each other,they finally go out of perplexity and construct their hybrid identities of China and America.The other type is the Chinese people living in semi-colonial and semi-feudal China.Influenced by the Western culture brought by the Westerners in concessions,the Chinese people show certain Western cultural characteristics in their thoughts and deeds.The mix-blood is Violet in the text.Because of the colonial thoughts in subconsciousness,Violet initially takes herself as a complete American,but her hybridity is shown in her ancestry and language.After experiencing a series of ordeals she identifies with her real self and constructs her hybrid ethnic identity at last.The conclusion is finally drawn that the cultural identities of characters in The Valley of Amazementare not fixed and stable,but a process of construction.The Other exists in the process of cultural identity construction.In the negotiation of the Self and the Other,the females who are in the marginalized position and the weak culture are going to the center gradually.The different characters in The Valley of Amazement construct their hybrid cultural identities.