China Men Under The Perspective Of New Historicism

China Men, published in 1980, is the second masterpiece of the famous Chinese American writer Maxine Hong Kingston. This work brought her National Book Critics Circle Award, the National Book Award and a runner-up for the Pulitzer Price in 1981. Compared with her first and the most famous work The Woman Warrior, Kingston and some other critics give more compliments to the work China Men in terms of theme and language arts. The thesis aims to apply the important concepts of New Historicism—Textuality of History and Historicity of Texts to analyze this masterpiece.In the introduction, the thesis will introduce Maxine Hong Kingston's profile, her famous works and two main controversies about her from the critical circle. Then the thesis will introduce China Men and present the current researches about the work. The limitations of these researches will be exposed and the purpose of this thesis will also be shown.The first chapter will introduce New Historicism. In order to present readers a clear understanding of New Historicism, the thesis will introduce three most famous representatives of this theory and present their contributions to the theory. Then the thesis will introduce the important concepts of New Historicism—Textuality of History and Historicity of Texts, and make a good theoretical preparation for the text analysis in the next part. At the end of this part, the development of New Historicism will be presented.The second chapter will explore the deep meanings of real historic events and interpretation of some historic stories under the guide of Textuality of History. China Men records a series Acts aiming to Chinese immigrants, diaries about Chinese immigrants' living situations and news reports about them. These solid historic facts not only just meet the proposition of Textuality of History, but also disclose the unfair and inhuman treatments suffered by Chinese immigrants in America. In the aspect of interpreting historic stories, Kingston adjusts the stories about Chinese immigrants' ways of entering America and the stories about the construction of railroad. Her interpretations represent the harshness for Chinese immigrants to enter America and the great contributions made by them to the development of America.The third chapter will show readers the influences of the time when the work was created, and the work's effects of shaping society will also be illustrated. Due to the special time of creating, Kingston was obviously influenced by the Civil Rights Movement and Anti-Vietnam War Movement. Meanwhile, the work also generates positive effects to the development of American society. The work not only subverts the negative stereotypes about Chinese immigrants, but also constructs an ideal platform for communication between the East and the West.The conclusion will summarizes Kingston's deep meanings which are learned from the analysis carried out under the guide of Textuality of History and Historicity of Texts. Kingston not only intends to present readers the harshness for Chinese to America, the inhuman treatments they received in America and the great contribution they made to America, but also appeals equality, communication and peace. So this work deserves the further study on itself.