From Contest To Identification

Gish Jen, one of the best-known Chinese American writers, depicts the variouslives of Asian Americans in American society with her profound themes and specificwriting strategies in her novels. The thesis uses Susan Lanser’s three narrative modesas the theoretical framework to study the authorial voice, the personal voices and thecommunal voice in Gish Jen’s Typical American and Mona in the Promised Land,arguing that Gish Jen reveals the changing relationship between Asian Americansand American society from contest to identification from the perspective of theinconsistencies in the authorial voice and personal voices as well as the underlyingharmony in the communal voice in her Typical American and Mona in the PromisedLand and shows her optimistic view of Asian American future life in Americansociety.The thesis is composed of the introduction, the body part and the conclusion.The first part contains a brief introduction to Gish Jen and her works, the studies ofTypical American and Mona in the Promised Land at home and broad, the problemto be studies, the theory to be adopted in the thesis and the argument and the layoutof the thesis. The body part is divided into three chapters. Chapter One not onlyexplores Gish Jen’s life experience as an Asian American and Asian American writer,but concerns the inconsistencies in the authorial voice and Gish Jen’s thinking ofAsian Americans in American society from three aspects: the authorial inconsistentviews, variable tone and mixed languages. Chapter Two probes into theinconsistencies in the personal voices and Asian Americans’ contest with Americansociety. It covers the inconsistencies in the voice of Ralph, Theresa, Helen and Monaand their respective experience of seeking their true identity and their identificationwith American society. Chapter Three analyzes the harmony hidden in the communalvoice based on the harmony hidden in the authorial voice and personal voices andreveals the process how Asian-Americans identify themselves with American society and finally achieve the harmony. On the basis of the preceding analysis, the last part,conclusion, summarizes the whole text in retrospection and point out that Gish Jen isconfident about the hopeful and happy lives of Asian Americans in America in thenew era.