| The writer Gish Jen(1955- ) is a second generation Chinese American and as a novelist, she has drawn much attention from readers and critics of contemporary American literature since the 1990s. She belongs to the new generation of Chinese American writers who emerge after the renowned writers such as Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan. Her main works include her first novel Typical American (1991); Mona in the Promised Land (1996); an anthology of short stories Who's Irish?(1999); and her latest novel The Love Wife (2004). In her works, she combines the adolescent's search for self with the larger search for culture identity. The common themes in her novels include stories of immigration, assimilation, conflict between different cultures, as well as changeable and fluid identity. The American dream is also an important aspect to her works.Gish Jen's first novel, Typical American, was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1991, which received the National Book Critic Award and became a New York Times notable book of the year 1991. The novel immediately launched Gish Jen into the literary limelight. It is an excellent attempt to describe the experiences of contemporary middle-class Chinese immigrants in America. In this novel, three young Chinese people Ralph Chang (the Protagonist), Theresa (Ralph's sister), and Helen (Theresa's friend and later Ralph's wife) moved to America with their separate American dreams for a better life in the 1940s. Through the protagonist Ralph's ordeals and trials, ups and downs in his pursuing of the American dream, Gish Jen demystifies the myth of American Dream and makes it clear the dual reality of American society: freedom and limitation. The protagonist Ralph's construction of his new culture identity at the end of the novel reveals Gish Jen's view of multicultural American society, that is, changeable and fluid identity and multiculturalism like a"salad bowl".The former researches on Gish Jen and her first novel Typical American mainly focus on the themes of multi-culture, immigrant experience, culture identity, ethnic conflict and assimilation, the American dream, or Gish Jen's writing style as well as her social and political views, etc. All these former researches more or less neglected a very important theme in the novel, that is, the initiation (i.e. growing-up) theme; or rather, few of them focus on this theme directly. So, on the basis of all these former researches, this thesis aims to analyze the novel explicitly from the perspective of initiation theme by using the theory of American initiation story as well as that of European Bildungsroman (i.e. a German word for initiation story or growing-up novel). All these theories include researches on the novels or stories with an initiation theme and the features of this kind of writing, etc. Bildungsroman, as well as the relevant theories, has a long tradition in Europe, which can trace its roots back to Germany, and has become one of the major genres in European and Anglo-American literature. This kind of writing especially has a strong tradition in America, which often bears the name of"Initiation Story"as the best synonym of"Bildungsroman".The introduction of this thesis mainly discusses American multiculturalism and the history and current situation of Chinese American literature, gives a brief introduction of Gish Jen'life and her work Typical American as well as the relative researches, and also develops a brief literature review of the theory of European Bildungsroman and American initiation story.Chapter one mainly elaborates the history or the development of European Bildungsroman and American initiation story, discusses the definition and the main features of this type of writing, aiming to construct a theory framework for the whole thesis. This chapter also includes a judgment of Typical American as a novel of initiation.Chapter two gives a detailed analysis of the protagonist Ralph Chang's initiation process according to his three stages of development: childhood in China; ordeals and trials in America; entering into the maturity.Chapter three mainly discusses the features of initiation story (or Bildungsroman) which are revealed in Typical American. The discussion includes alienation from family and society, images of positive and negative mentors, image of companion and the plot of growing-up, all of which belong to the features of an initiation story. Consequently, this thesis concludes that as a male Chinese American, the protagonist Ralph Chang's process of growing-up is widely meaningful to all the ethnic Americans'growing-up process in a multicultural American society and at the same time meaningful to all the adolescents'growing-up process in a broader sense. In addition, as an ethnic initiation story in a multicultural American society, the novel Typical American is also a further development of the writing of traditional American initiation stories and European Bildungsroman.
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