The Disillusionment Of American Dream

David Wong Louie (1954- ), together with Amy Tan, Gish Jen, and Gus Lee are named as "the Gang of Four". Besides, he is also given the title as one of the backbones in the present Asian American fiction field. He started to publish works in the 1970s, and his fictions have a high reputation in America. Pangs of Love, his first collection of short stories, is highly valued and remains one of the best sellers.Overseas critics are interested in the ambiguity of the characters' identities and pay attention to Louie's nearly all male protagonists and their relationship with White women, so their researches can be mainly divided into two parts: those using a reader reception perspective, and those using a queer theory. However, their researches are mostly based on just one story from the collection. In China, researches on Louie's Pangs of Love are quite scarce, because compared with the writings of other Asian American writers, the ethnicity in his works is considered not obvious, for characters in his fictions are usually with an ambivalent and ambiguous identity. However, there appeared numerable studies which, to my understanding, fall into three catalogues: general introductions to David Wong Louie and his works; character analysis; and thematic analysis.But actually the theme of ethnicity is implied and ubiquitous throughout Pangs of Love. Once this is realized, it becomes clear that there exist three kinds of conflicts in Pangs of Love: those between Chinese Americans and their White women; those between immigrant parents and their children who were born in America; and those between Chinese Americans and Americans. My intention in this thesis is to focus on these three kinds of conflicts and, by trying to find out reasons behind these conflicts, to reveal the existential conditions of the second generation Chinese Americans.Besides introduction and conclusion, this thesis consists of three chapters:Chapter One discusses the conflicts between Chinese Americans and their White women. It is further divided into two parts involving two themes: emasculation and displacement. Nearly all the stories begin with the end or the beginning of a relationship between a second generation Chinese American and his White woman partner. The effort to build up a relationship with White women is symbolic of the effort of those Chinese Americans who desire to be assimilated into the mainstream White world, while the end of the relationship indicates their failure to such assimilation.Chapter Two deals with the conflicts between the immigrant parents and their American-born children. In so far as the parents are concerned, because of their Chinese cultural inheritance and the hostility from the White world, they have a rejection attitude towards the mainstream White world and thus have maintained their Chinese cultural heritage. They also hope to transmit this heritage to their American-born children. However, the second generation, or the American-born generation, have internalized the standards and values of the mainstream White world, so that their parents' world is incomprehensible to them. They consider themselves as Americans, while the repulsion from the mainstream White world and the pressure from their parents cause an identity crisis among them. Thus their conflict is a stinging one. This chapter will mainly focus on the conflicts aroused by their different views about family and marriage as well as language barrier.Chapter Three penetrates into the conflicts between Chinese Americans and Americans. These conflicts are caused by racial prejudice of the White world towards Chinese Americans. It recalls the history of racial prejudice towards Chinese Americans, and the perpetual otherness position and stereotypes of Chinese Americans.A logical conclusion from the discussion of these conflicts is that the hope of the second generation Chinese Americans to be assimilated into the mainstream White world is but a dream with the characteristics of a sheer myth.