Parody And Pacifism In Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book

Maxine Hong Kingston, one of the most significant Chinese American authors, has produced works marked by profound connotation, fresh perspectives and unique writing style. In Tripmaster Monkey, Maxine Hong Kingston successfully utilizes parodic allusions that extends from classical texts both in Chinese literature as well as in American literature. She even passes reference to the cultural contexts she writes. In terms of the skill with which she mixes parody with multi-layered thematic concerns, Tripmaster Monkey can be said to surpass her previous two works(The Woman Warrior and China Men).Parody, vastly visible in literary texts both ancient, modern, and postmodern, basically refers to the ironic imitation of an author, a work, a literary genre, or a particular style or ideology. While consensus over the definition and cultural politics of parody remains surprisingly lacking, there is an increasing critical attention on the explorations of texts riff with parodic references.This dissertation aims at analyzing the myriad aspects of parody used in Tripmaster Monkey, exploring the writer's ideology embedded in the application of parody to indicate that Maxine Hong Kingston is a writer who pursues peace and who envisages the construction of a peaceful society with compatibility, harmony, diversity, multiculturalism and hyper-racism. The conspicuous pacifist ideology in her other important works are also illustrated to trace her creative course of pursuing peace and to indicate that she herself is a peace-loving pacifist.