The Pursuit Of Identity In The Third Space

Maxine Hong Kingston takes an important place in the worldliterature. She makes great contribution to the development of theChinese American literature. Her famous work The Woman Warriorarouses wide attention both at home and abroad. Scholars and critics havebeen analyzing this work from various different perspectives, such asfeminism, deconstructionism and postmodernism. This thesis, by theapplication of Homi Bhabha’s third space theory and hybridity theory inpostcolonialism, is to give a fresh interpretation to this work.In The Woman Warrior, the Chinese Americans live in the clashes oftwo different cultures, and the constant conflicts and frustrations make ithard for them to achieve their special gender and social identity in theAmerican society. According to Homi Bahbah’s third space theory,people from different cultures could coexist by pursuing a third spacethrough the hybridity of the different cultures. They could not only keeptheir own traditional value, but also absorb the value and the way of lifefrom the other culture. This research believes that, through her novel The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston clearly illustrates this point bydescribing Brave Orchid, her daughter and Moon Orchid’s differentexperiences and the rewriting of both Fa Mulan’s and T’sai Yen’s story.Through the detailed analysis of the novel from the perspective of thethird space theory, the thesis presents readers the process of ChineseAmericans in their pursuit of hybrid identity. It is hoped that this thesiscould contribute to the discussion on the identity pursuit of ChineseAmericans in the American society.