Dream Pursuit In Multicultural Context: An Interpretation Of Women's Identity In The Love Wife

As an active writer in contemporary Chinese American literature, Gish Jen's topic of American dream which was popular in 1990s attracts a great number of readers, critics and literary researchers. Contrasted to her three former works, her latest novel The Love Wife creates a clan of three generation to show every character's self-cognition, identity crisis and happiness dream. In that extended family, every woman's road to dream has a sea of difficulty, which is showed clearly on identity issue. So, this thesis takes American dream as a starting point, cheifly analyzes women's identity problem through feminism. The main body of this thesis consists of three chapters.Chapter One investigates the sense of American dream synchronically and diachronically. American dream, that eternal subject in American literature has two models:the dream of world-creation and American nightmare. The former emphasizes that pursuers realize material and spiritual success through positive and rightful methods, while the latter attaches importance on material success rather than spiritual success, which leads to disharmonious interpersonal relationship. Those two models of American dream are interwoven together in Chinese American literature, so in that multicultural context, Chinese Americans who take material success as their goal should pursue a determined cultural identity at the same time. As a double vulnerable group, Chinese American women have dreams of cultural identity and gender identity.Chapter Two presents women's identity crisis described in The Love Wife. The identity crisis of immigrant generation typically represented by Mama Wong and Lan is on nationality. Although they have achieved material success and have become American citizens, they are confronted with belief crisis, because, in the eyes of Native Americans, they are "bananas" which symbolize that they are neither Chinese nor American. Identity crisis of the second generation represented by Janie who is a white woman is manifested from marriage. Janie pursues a marriage which is filled with freedom and happiness, so she gets married with her beloved Carnegie who is a Chinese American, but the wife identity of her is not stable because of the conflict of different cultures. Identity crisis of the third generation represented by Lizzy and Wendy is manifested from blood complex. Lizzy, the elder sister is an adopted girl whose nationality is unknown, and the young girl Wendy is adopted from China. The two adopted girls doubt their real member identity in that multiblood family.Chapter Three discusses that the hybridized identity is women's ideal identity in multicultural context. Women's identity crisis results from culture, so two characteristics of culture diversity and conflict will be discussed primarily, and in that novel, they will be expressed by Chinese philosophy and American consumerism. Secondly, this thesis explores that cultures can coexist after negotiation and compromise. In the novel, Chinese American women must accept the hybridized identity. The conclusion of this chapter points out that those women must take hybridized identity as their real identity in multicultural background, and must find their right positions and realize their dreams in a new space.All in all, The Love Wife is characterized by multicultural background, and five women characters pursue their dreams in cultural conflicts. After negotiation and compromise, they have made decisions to accept hybridized identity which can maintain harmonious relations in that family. That novel rethinks human nature and reflects Jen's optimistic attitude towards the prospect of minority culture.