The Clashes And Integration Of Chinese Culture And Western Culture

Of all the Chinese American writers, Maxine Hong Kingston is undoubtedly themost well known in contemporary American literature. She is commonly regarded asthe leading figure that has brought Chinese American literature into the mainstreamwriting of American literature. With her three important published works, The WomanWarrior (1976), China Men (1980), and Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (1989),she has not only gained official recognition but also established her cultural positionas a Chinese American. She proves to be one of the most influential ChineseAmerican writers who succeeded in integrating Chinese culture and Western culture.The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts, her first book publishedin 1976, is lauded by the literary establishment as a milestone in Chinese Americanliterary history. In the book Kingston explores the dilemma of Chinese Americanimmigrants' straddling in two cultures. Since its publication the book has attractedenormous attentions from literary circle. It became an instant bestseller and washighly praised by many scholars. Many research has been done on The WomanWarrior from the perspective of feminism, root searching, youth's bewilderment andtreason, marginalized culture, and so on.As a Chinese girl student majoring in English literature, the writer of this thesisespecially takes interest in those American women writers who are of Chineseancestry. Having collected and read a lot of materials in this field, the writer finds thatthe issue of cultural clashes and integration between China and the western world thatis reflected in Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior is a field worth goinginto, because it is still a field in Chinese American literary studies which has not beenwholly and systematically gone into. From the perspective of a native Chinese girlother than that of American scholars, the writer of this paper hopes to make a freshway in the field of Chinese American studies. Therefore, this paper tries to interpretthe cultural clashes and integration between China and the Western world thatreflected in The Woman Warrior.The paper consists of six parts.The first part is an introduction of the whole thesis, including a detailedintroduction to Maxine Hong Kingston and her three major works, but the main focusis on her first book, The Woman Warrior.The second part, which is also the first chapter of the thesis, is a generalintroduction to Chinese American literature, including its history, its development,and the status quo of Chinese American literary studies. In this part, by contrastingmany other scholars' definitions on "Chinese American Literature", the writer of thispaper points out her own opinion, that is the term "Chinese American Literature"refers to English works created by Chinese offspring who grew up in America.The third part, which is the second chapter, illustrates the embodiment of culturalclashes in The Woman Warrior, such as the disharmonious relationship betweenparents and children, the silence of Chinese American female (including three ChineseAmerican mothers and a Chinese American daughter), and the difficult position ofself-identification for the protagonist. At the same time, it discusses culturaldifferences between China and the west, for example, different conception of self,different attitudes towards truth and harmony, different sense of obligation anddifferent time consciousness.The forth part, which is the third chapter, talks about the uneasy process of finalintegration of two different cultures. By breaking the oppressive silence and findingher ethnic identity as a Chinese American and her gender identity as an androgynouswoman, the protagonist sets a good example for cultural integration to other ChineseAmericans who are living "between-worlds". Then it discusses two symbols ofcultural integration in the book—transform and displace the traditional Chinese storyof Hua Mu Lan into a Chinese American myth, and the song of Ts'ai Yen at the end ofthe book, in which the protagonist eventually finds a way of reconciliation betweenChinese and American mainstream culture.The fifth part, which is the forth chapter, explores the reasons for cultural clashesbetween China and the West, such as different ideological system, the influence ofmisogynistic and discriminative society, and the unconscious influence of family.In the last part, a conclusion is drawn to this paper. And a brief discussion is doneon a phenomenon, that is, Kingston and her works have under attack of some scholarssince publication, especially several Chinese American writers, because she displacesand transplants traditional Chinese culture into her own use.The significance of studying The Woman Warrior from cultural perspective liesin two aspects. Firstly, the protagonist's process and final result of solving herconflicts with two cultures provide all the Chinese Americans with an active andpractical solution to the dilemma between two different worlds, and inspire them toset up a distinct Chinese American culture and a special Chinese American identity toadapt to their lives in America. Secondly, the study also functions as a reference topromoting bilateral dialogue and communication between two different cultures andhelping to minimize cultural conflicts in the present world.From the perspective of culture, through detailed study of works of MaxineHong Kingston, this paper intends to illustrate that by the contribution of Kingstonand many other Chinese American writers, Chinese culture and western culture havereached a new layer of integration through the difficult process of clashing andconfronting.