Illness Narratives Of New North American Immigrants’ Literature

Illness narratives in literature not only describe special physical and mental experience but also entail social,political,cultural,and ethical meanings which merit scholarly attention.In the new North American immigrants’ literature,illness narratives have become remarkable phenomena.Compared with those in modern Chinese literature,the cross-cultural background endows these works with literary traits transcending our daily life experience which deserves in-depth studies.Despite the extensive studies of illness narratives home and abroad,limited attention has been given to that aspect in overseas Chinese literature,especially the new North American immigrants’ literature,considering the number of works.To fill this gap,this paper focuses on the following aspects of illness narratives of the new North American immigrants’ literature: the type,writing strategies,position of the writers,and its typicalness as genre novels.The study also expounds on its aesthetic and cultural implications in a cross-cultural background.The introduction expounds on the rationale of this research,the status quo of related studies home and abroad,methodologies,and the structure of the thesis.Chapter 1 focuses on the types of illness narratives of new North American immigrants’ literature in terms of physical symptoms and psychological diseases,and discusses their cultural implications and significance in reality.Chapter 2 starts from the perspectives of dreams,subconsciousness,symbols and metaphors to analyze the writing strategies,and reveal the problems of identity and historical awareness expressed in cross-cultural contexts.Chapter 3 analyzes the writers’ position in the novels and their limitations,highlighting their double cultural identities during literary creation and the novels’ significance in enriching the topics and connotations of modern Chinese literature.In the meanwhile,the study also reflects on the writers’ habitual preferences that result in limitations of these works as a genre.As an important component of overseas Chinese literature,new North American immigrants’ literature has strong vitality.The discussion of the inner connection of their cross-cultural background with nation-building,and cultural conflicts and reconciliation,is conducive to understanding overseas Chinese life experience and spiritual journey as a cross-cultural,cross-temporal and cross-spatial existence.