Confrontation, Subversion And Transcendence

In the past three decades, American ethnic literature has developed so fast that it has become one of the prominent genres in the literary field. Chinese-American Literature, one of the vigorous branches of Asian American Literature, has also got great achievements. For the present thesis, the author has selected the three works: Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly and Fae Myenne Ng's Bone, to study the women images from the perspective of the post-colonialism. With the detailed analyses of the changing process of women images moving from confrontation to subversion, and finally going beyond the binary antithesis, the author concludes that this changing process is actually the developing process of Chinese-American Literature and other ethnic literature. In the era of globalization, going beyond the antithesis and advocating the coexistence of plurality is the right attitude for the people to live harmoniously in this world.Besides the introduction and the conclusion, my thesis consists of other three main chapters. In Chapter Two, the author focuses on the study of two pairs of mothers and daughters in The Joy Luck Club. Born and raised in different backgrounds, they always have contradictions and conflicts between them, which often end up in silence, and this silence may even last for years. What will be discussed in this chapter is not only the silence of females' language, but also the disappearance of the female subjectivity. Having analyzed the reasons for the silence, the author of the present thesis contends that the Chinese-American females should break the silence and live for themselves independently. Only in this way can they reconstruct the female subjectivity and enter the ideal state of "Joy Luck Club". Finally the author points out that silence in Amy Tan's work, to some degree, is a kind of resistance to the Orientalism.In Chapter Three, the author focuses on the study of the character Song Liling in David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly. Song is a Beijing Opera actor, who disguises himself as a woman to subvert the stereotype of a submissive Asian woman. Through this image, the author argues that, for the first time, David Henry Hwang decodes the mystery of "Madame Butterfly", which is deeply-rooted in Western culture, and let audience hear the voice of the Asian butterfly. In this play, Hwang parodies the colonial discourse in the way of "paying one back in his own coin", rather than takes the direct upside-down way. By this means, it has caused a substantial change in the inner part of the colonialists, thus weakening the power of colonial discourse and challenging the inveterate Western colonial discourse successfully.In Chapter Four, the author focuses on the study of the heroine Leila in Fae Myenne Ng's novel Bone. As an ethnic woman and the pillar of her family, she has to face the confrontations of the past and present, the life and death, and the East and West. The death of her sister Ona makes Leila feel despondent, but it gives her the power to shuttle back and forth freely among the past, present and future, and the very freedom let her gain the power of living in a new world, where she regards these confrontations as the two parts which can transform, rather than conflict with each other. Finally she goes beyond the series of confrontations perfectly. Thus the author concludes that this process reflects the leap of American ethnic female groups in their identity confirmation, which means moving from the acceptance of binary opposition passively to the transcendence of them to construct a new discourse for themselves.Through the analysis of the women images in the three works, it is clearly sensed that the process in which the Chinese-American women seek for their identity in the mainstream society. As for the Chinese-American Literature, through their works, many Chinese-American writers have revealed the deeply-rooted prejudice about the west-east relationship, subverted the Oriental stereotypes in Westerners' eyes, and at the same time expressed their best wishes to go beyond the binary opposition and to advocate the coexistence of plurality, which the author argues, is also the right attitude that all of us should take in the time of globalization.