| In this paper, I analyze the construction of the ethnic woman writer in Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior from a psychoanalytic perspective. Since the terms " ethnic" and "woman-writer" are traditionally problematic terms, I first address the construction of these terms within the dominant discourse of Western thought. Specifically, I address the "de-centeredness" associated with "ethnic" and the centered, subject position of writing in order to highlight the apparent contradiction in the term "ethnic writer." Additionally, by raising the question of the construction of "woman" as another marginalized term within Western discourse, I problematize further the term "ethnic woman writer.".;Specifically, I look at four narrative disruptions: revised narratives, changes in person, changes in verb tense (or mood), and narrative assertions. Each disruption, I maintain, is an aspect of the "subject-in-the-making" to which we later ascribe the term "ethnic woman writer." The disruptions are explained as functions of an overdetermination stemming from the positioning of a subject position "I" in relation to the texts of "Chinese," "American," and "woman." These texts of race and gender disrupt any temporarily stable subject position and are descriptive of the "ethnic woman writer.".;In contrast to many critical approaches which posit an a priori author which stands "outside" the text negotiating or manipulating the issues of the text, I approach the ethnic woman writer in The Woman Warrior as a "subject-in-the-making." Using the theories of Lacan, I focus on those places in the text where the coherent narrative breaks; in so doing, I seek to describe the "ethnic woman writer" which the text of The Woman Warrior is in the process of creating. |
