An Interpretation Of The Initiation Theme In Typical American

The writer Gish Jen, a second generation Chinese American, is an outstanding one of Chinese American writers. As a novelist, she publishes her first novel Typical American in 1991, which greatly shocks the American literature. Consequently, she has drawn great attention from American readers and critics since then. After the publication of Typical American, Mona in the Promised Land (1996), an anthology of short stories Who's Irish? (1999), The Love Wife (2004) and World and Town (2010) have come out in succession. In her works, the common themes include immigration experiences, ethnic conflicts and assimilation and the pursuit of the American dream.Typical American mainly tells a story about a typical Chinese family's immigration in America, in which the protagonist Ralph Chang, Theresa and Helen are three main characters, whose marginal life in America and ups and downs in the pursuit of the American dream is told in the third-person point of view. During the past few years, many critics have studied this novel from the perspectives of immigration experiences, cultural identity, American dream and narrative strategies, etc. However, the initiation theme presented in Typical American has not aroused great attention. The initiation theme is embodied in the growing course of the protagonist Ralph Chang and his change from a typical Chinese to a typical American.As a literary genre, initiation story can trace back to German literature, and is widely accepted and gets well developed in the literary field throughout the world. Initiation into adulthood is an inevitable stage in one's life. As an existing cultural phenomenon as well as the significant experience for an individual, initiation has been an eternal theme in literature, which deserves researchers'great attention. Initiation story is such a novel as tells about the course of one's growing-up. Through narrating the growing experiences of the protagonist, it reflects the protagonist's changing course from immaturity to maturity both in mind and psychology.This thesis intends to interpret Typical American from the perspective of initiation story and explore how the novel manages to use the specific literary genre to present the growing process of the protagonist. The novel inherits the archetypal experience of initiation story in terms of contents, characters as well as structure, which means the novel Typical American possesses the characteristics of traditional initiation story. In addition, as an ethnic American, the protagonist's growing course in the multicultural American society owns its peculiarity, which makes this novel transcend European Bildungsroman and traditional American initiation story.This thesis consists of an introduction, the main body and a conclusion. Its main contents are as follows:The first part is the introduction. Firstly, it briefly introduces Gish Jen's life and the story of Typical American. Secondly, it makes a brief summary of the current situation of the research on the novel at home and abroad. Thirdly, it points out the purpose, practical significance and the new insights of the thesis.The second part is the main body, which is made up of four chapters:Chapter I is the theoretical frame of this thesis. Firstly, it elaborates the origin and development of initiation story by tracing its root back to Germany, examining its popularity in Victorian England and discussing its succession in America. Secondly, various kinds of definitions of initiation story are presented and the general features of this type of writing are discussed, including its features in contents, characters and structure. Thirdly, it gives the judgment of Typical American as an initiation story.Chapter II analyzes the characteristics of initiation story presented in this novel in terms of contents. Generally speaking, initiation novel contains autobiographical components based on the author's own experiences, and mainly describes the protagonist's initiation process, involving obvious conflicts between the protagonist and the reality, and constant identity seeking. The experiences of Ralph Chang, Theresa and Helen's pursuit of a suitable cultural identity during the growth process symbolize the author Gish Jen's challenge to the rigidified notion of ethnicity of the Melting Pot concept. At the same time, the racial discrimination experienced by the Chang family reflects that multiculturalism has a long way to the achieved state of affairs in American society.Chapter III analyzes the characteristics of initiation story reflected in this novel in terms of characters. The novel depicts many characters who exert great influence on the initiation of the protagonist, including initiation guides,both positive and negative, and initiation companion. They play a significant role in the growth of the protagonist. Chapter IV analyzes the characteristics of initiation story presented in this novel in terms of structure. The plot of the novel corresponds to the basic plot of traditional initiation story, which can be considered to be a variant, that is, temptation– leaving home– trials– confusion– epiphany– recognition of life and self. Besides, the novel has an open-ending and epiphany, which are the typical features of an initiation story.The last part is the conclusion, which makes a summary of the preceding chapters, and points out the social significance of this thesis. Typical American confirms to the general features of traditional initiation story and thus can be defined as an initiation story. Besides, as a novel of the growth of a minority adolescent in America, Typical American transcends European Bildungsroman and is a further development of traditional American initiation story. The innovation of the thesis lies in that it attempts to interpret the novel Typical American from the perspective of the initiation theme. The author of the thesis hopes that this thesis could enrich the study of Typical American, as well as enlarge the research scope of initiation story. Meanwhile, as a male Chinese American, the initiation experiences of the protagonist Ralph Chang are meaningful not only to ethnic Chinese adolescents but to all the adolescents in the multicultural American land like a salad bowl. In brief, Typical American is an initiation novel of the growing process of an ethnic American in the multicultural American society.