Bewilderment And Initiation: Interpreting The Initiation Theme In Fifth Chinese Daughter And The Woman Warrior

Jade Snow Wong's Fifth Chinese Daughter is the first Chinese American literary work well received by mainstream audiences, and Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior is regarded as one of the most influential Asian American literary works. There are many critical reviews about these two works due to their significance in the history of Chinese American literature, but few critics classify these works, especially Fifth Chinese Daughter, as Bildungsromane, and discuss the initiation theme of these two works together. The Bildungsroman, as a literary genre, deals with the education and development of its young protagonist, and has a strong tradition in western literatures. This thesis intends to choose these two Bildungsromane to discuss the second-generation Chinese American girls' bewilderments and initiations in the Chinatown during the transitional era, and features of these two Bildungsromane. Relative theories in feminism and post-colonialism are used in this thesis to make further analysis.This thesis is composed of four chapters, plus the introduction and the conclusion. The introduction discusses the genre problem of the two works. Chapter One reviews definitions and evolution of the Bildugsroman, and describes features of the two ethnic female Bildungsromane. Chapter Two probes into the two protagonists' different bewilderments, and the relation between their bewilderments and the double isolation of the Chinatown. Chapter Three analyzes the two protagonists' guides. The analysis of guides' influences on the protagonists will help us understand their Bildungs or initiations further. Chapter Four explores the two protagonists' epiphany or awakening on their initiation journeys.The Conclusion sums up the observations made in the earlier chapters, and indicates that the two ethnic female Bildungsromane are featured by happy endings instead of tragic endings featuring contemporary mainstream American Bildungsromane.