A Postcolonial Analysis Of Cultural Identity Construction In Typical American

Gish Jen(1956-) is a second generation Chinese American writer, who receives much claim from the readership and attracts more and more attention of critics by her humorous, ironic language style and her insight on the issue of cultural identity of ethnic minorities in America. In her writing, Gish Jen questions and deconstructs the racial stereotypes imposed by mainstream American society and discusses the construction of cultural identity of Chinese Americans caught in the predicament of Chinese traditional culture and American mainstream culture.Typical American is the first novel by Gish Jen. It focuses on the experience of the Changs after they immigrate to America. After continuous seeking, they realize that Chinese culture and American culture are equally important to them and reconstruct their hybrid cultural identity.This thesis explores the construction of the Changs' cultural identity in Typical American from the postcolonial perspective. The Changs adhere to Chinese traditional culture when they first come to America, while later attempted by the promise of American dream, they try to assimilate into American culture. However, they find themselves locating in a hybridized cultural identity eventually. By illustrating the process of identity seeking of the Changs, the thesis draws the conclusion that cultural identity is not fixed, but constructed between the differences of cultures.This thesis imposes of six parts, with four chapters set between the introduction and the conclusion. Introduction presents the background and question of this thesis. Since 1960s, Chinese American literature witnessed rapid growth and the issue of cultural identity draws more and more attention. Gish Jen conveys her insightful opinion on this question in her novel Typical American.The first chapter includes literature review and theoretical basis. Many researches on Typical American have been done by scholars both at home and abroad, among which cultural criticism has been paid much attention. However, there is rare study illustrating this novel from the postcolonial perspective. Sprung up in the latter half of 1990s, postcolonial theory pays attention to the cultural relationship of different nations under the globalization background. Adopting postcolonial theory as the theoretical basis, this thesis summarizes the main idea of three representative postcolonial critics.Chapter two analyzes the dilemma of the Changs to locate their cultural identity caught between two usually conflicting cultures. Faced with alienation from the home land and discrimination of the host land, they are inevitably confused on their cultural identity.Chaper three illustrates the seeking process of the Changs for cultural identity. They cling to Chinese culture at first and then turn to accept American culture. This process can be discerned from three aspects:different view of success, view of family and mode of thinking.Chapter four focuses on the reconstruction of the Changs' cultural identity. Suffering the tragedy caused by complete Americanization, the Changs redefine American identity and construct new identity featured by hybridity.By depicting the cultural identity construction process in Typical American, Gish Jen points out that cultural identity is not fixed but a process of construction and different cultures can achieve negotiation by communication, which is enlightening for resolving the identity crisis of ethnic minorities and establishing harmonious relationship of different cultures.