| Since Amy Tan as well as her novels occupy a very important position in the world of Chinese-American world in terms of description of how the Chinese-Aamerican females live in the American mainstream society,the thesis will analyze the causes of identity loss and discuss how the Chinese-American females construct their gender identity,cultural identity as well as ethnic identity from the perspective of the soical constructionism.Chapter three emphasizes that it is very crucial for them to get rid of the objectification and to enhance their social status and to set up the proper female images for themselves for the purpose of constructing the gender identity.Also with the help of the Social Constructionism,we could know that it is very important to revolt against the outdated views and social practices.Firstly,the thesis will apply the objectification theory to analyze how these females try to fight against males to take back their sexual autonomy,the right of speech,the right of controlling their own bodies and the right of expressing their thoughts,and also the thesis will put more attention to the enhancement of women`s family status which could be seen as the revolt against the idea of misogyny.Secondly,the thesis will discuss how these females try to unite with both native Chinese females and the American females to fight against the patriarchy,pointing out that these females make full use of their ability to deal with all kinds of affairs both inside and outside the family.Thirdly,the thesis will point out that only when the oriental stereotypes are shattered could these females receive respects from the mainstream society.Chapter four mainly discusses how these females construct their ethnic identity.According to the Social Constructionism,people should hold a critical stance towards taken-for-granted knowledge of ethnic identity.Firstly,the paper will analyze the ethnic fusion from the perspective of pluralism.According to the paper,America is a country where different merits of different ethnic groups meet together,therefore,to maintain the balance between these two ethnicity is very helpful to construct the new ethnic identity,and moreover through that way these females could keep away from the awkwardness caused by intentionally avoiding one of these two ethnicity.Secondly,the thesis has analyzed how the Chinese-American females try to construct their ethnic identity by way of fighting against the sense of American superiority and the sense of Chinese superiority in terms with ethnocentrism.Thirdly,due to the fact that these females could not avoid the process of cultural entanglement or cultural hybridity,the paper will discuss the importance of maintaining the positive ethnic attitude as well as their own Chinese ethnicity,pointing out that whether they are immigrants from China or American-born Chinese females they should remember that trying to enter the society but neglecting their Chinese ethnicity will turn out to be counterproductive if they are eager to be accepted by the society.Fourthly,there is a trend among the group that many of the American-born Chinese female writers create their novels with the idea of internal racism,then given such situation the paper will analyze the reason why these females possess such an attitude towards Chinese ethnicity,stating that female writers should hold what they have written responsible,for they should not write something that is totally different or even distorted from the original Chinese history.Chapter five mainly explains how these females try to construct their cultural identity.Since the major focus of the Social Constructionism is to look at the ways social phenomena are created,institutionalized,known,and made into tradition by humans.Therefore,people should revolt against the fixed and outdated social views so that they could form a proper social ideas.Firstly,the paper will discuss how these females construct their new cultural identity through revolt against not only the cultural supremacy of both Chinese culture and American culture but also the male chauvinism.Secondly,the paper will talk about how these females make these two different cultures acculturate each other successfully so that the new cultural identity could be erected under the theory of dimensional accrual and dissociation,and meantime,the opinions of the third culture will be included in this section for the purpose of showing the importance of identifying with their Motherland culture in the case of getting away from marginalization.Thirdly,the paper will make use of the opinion of the third culture kids or the third culture individuals to explain how these females should treat their Motherland culture in order to deal with the sense of homelessnessThe conclusion part states that through the novel Amy Tan has shown the brand new images of the Chinese female immigrants or the American-born Chinese females to the people of the mainstream society,and that could be very important for them to establish their social position,to improve their living conditions as well as know clearly of themselves in terms with the cultural and ethnic identity.For example,although those female characters were living in the time of old China,their mindsets or beliefs are quite modern.They not only look for the freedom of marriage,pay high attention to the higher education for their sons and daughters,and scramble for the inheritance right but also struggle against the social reality so that they could find a better way to balance the weights between the Chinese culture and the American culture and even to seek an efficient way to deal with the relationship between the two.That would be what Amy Tan would like to do the time she wants to create the novel through which Amy Tan shows the valuable experience of how to tackle the relationship among different racial groups in other countries.However,as is seen pretty clearly,the writer makes readers believe that she is also the one who upholds the orientalism,for she tries to make use of the American females to set up a new image for those females,for example,despite the fact that the writer has displayed such a lot of merits of Chinese females as bravery,wisdom and even personal independence of conducts,the truth is that all these merits back to the old time did not exist in China,therefore,we can make a guess from the novel that these are not the images of those females but the images of American females.Moreover,although Amy Tan hopes to change the views or opinions on Chinese culture and the Chinese social practices hold by the mainstream by introducing the perfect images of those females,yet,in her novel she does not make the proper reading of these things that are related to those Chinese-American females and even some of them are totally absurd.That would make China more and more mysterious.Therefore,the paper holds that to some degree the novel makes a great success in improving the images of Chinese females,but there is also a failure that the novel furthers the foreign readers on the road of misunderstanding Chinese history and traditional culture. |
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