Rebellion Against American Orientalism

Approaching Kingston's Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book through the theoretical lens of Orientalism, the thesis aims at exploring Kingston's ideological argument of rebelling against American Orientalism in the novel. Based on a close reading of the text, it shows that in Tripmaster Monkey, Kingston reacts against American Orientalism through redefining the Chinese American self, constructing a Chinese American community and manifesting a new feminist stance.The thesis consists of four chapters besides the introduction and the conclusion. Chapter One introduces Said's incisive views on Orientalism and the influence of American Orientalism on Chinese Americans. Based on the distinction between the western Self and the eastern Other, American Orientalism ostracizes Chinese Americans in forms of stereotypes and other Orientalist paradigms. Being a Chinese American and ethnic woman writer, Kingston knows well the influence of the Orientalist discourse. To show her protest, Kingston makes her first novel Tripmaster Monkey a book of rebellion.Chapter Two shows that Kingston redefines the Chinese American self by manipulating Wittman Ah Sing to escape from the confinement of stereotypes. The juxtaposition of Wittman with the Monkey King in Chinese mythology avails Wittman of blasting stereotypes and acquiring empowerment from his ethnic heritage. Thus, he is able to integrate the Whitmanian tradition of singing for one's self with Chinese ideograph"I"so as to refashion the Chinese American self. The hybrid Chinese American self and the combination of Chinese and American cultures challenge American Orientalism in transgressing the border between the western Self and the eastern Other.Chapter Three illustrates that Kingston manipulates Wittman to build a Chinese American community. It is an all-inclusive, democratic and non-warlike community, incorporating Chinese value of collectivity, American value of individualism and the 1960s antiwar mood. The community as a hybrid embryo and the interplay of Chinese and American cultural values undermine American Orientalism in subverting the binary opposition between West and East.Chapter Four presents that Kingston adopts a new feminist stance to react against the Orientalist fantasy on her feminist agenda. In Tripmaster Monkey, Kingston focuses on the male protagonist's experience, manipulating him to grow from a sexist to an understanding man, portrays the Chinese American women as strong and able figures, and envisions a harmonious relationship between Chinese American man and woman through the divergence and convergence of the omniscient narrator's and the protagonist's narrative voices. In this way, her feminist stance breaks stereotypes on Chinese American women, disrupts the Orientalist clichéthat grieving Chinese women need the Whites'rescue and fails white feminists'expectation of gender wars.In short, in Tripmaster Monkey, Kingston shows her strong ideological argument of rebelling against American Orientalism through redefining the Chinese American self, constructing a Chinese American community and manifesting a new feminist stance.