Mona's Search For Identity In Mona In The Promised Land

Gish Jen is a well-known Chinese American writer in the field of Chinese American literature after Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan. Her first novel Typical American was sold well and received many scholars'attention from home and abroad alike. Her second novel Mona in the Promised Land still waits for more comprehensive and systematic assessments. This thesis will make an analysis of the protagonist Mona in Mona in the Promised Land from a cultural identity perspective, elaborating on Mona's fluid identity and revealing that identity is not unary and stable, but convertible and changeable in American society with multiple cultures.In the introduction, the author of this thesis firstly introduces Gish Jen and her works. A review of major criticism of Gish Jen and her novels is provided to show the necessity of writing the thesis.In the first chapter, the present author analyzes the protagonist Mona's identity perplexity. Mona grows up in the multiple cultures—Chinese culture, American culture and Jewish culture, and do not know who she is.In the second chapter, this thesis gives an analysis of how Mona actively searches for her identity under a lot of pressures.In the third chapter, this thesis analyzes Mona's new conception of identity, that is, accepting multiple culture values, folding into American main stream society and being a fluid new American with multiple cultures. The postmodernist theories are applied to the analysis of this chapter.Finally, this thesis comes to the conclusion that Mona's identity is not unary and stable, and it is fluid and changeable with the influence of multiple cultures.