A Pilgrimage Of Utopia

Gish Jen as one of the most successful Chinese American female writers has developed her own special writing style. Her works broke through the obsessive pursuit of Chinese American cultural identity; instead, she emphasized more on the questions with universal meanings. This dissertation analyzed Gish Jen’s pursuit and understanding of a perfect utopian world from cultural identity and multicultural point of view through the study of her three novels, Typical American, Mona in the Promised Land and The Love Wife.Utopia, as the symbol of human beings wishes and pursuit of a perfect society and life, is still stimulating people to hope for a better society. And it is the existence of the darkness of the world that makes us hope for a better utopian world.In her first novel, through the redefining of the meaning Americanness, Gish Jen expressed her hope and longing for an equal and free life as a Chinese American, one member of ethnic minorities, and her own wish of a better world. Her second novel Mona in the Promised Land is the continuation of Typical American. It is the story of a second generation of Chinese American, Mona. Mona in the novel is a girl more brave and rebellious than her parents. She bravely expressed her hope for freedom through the change of her own identity from Chinese American to Jewish American. She established Camp Gugelstein, a group of people hoping for equality and love, with her friends coming from different ethnic backgrounds. Although the failure of this brave endeavor reminds us of the difficulties and obstacles lying ahead, Gish Jen expressed to us her faith in a beautiful utopian world. In The Love Wife, Gish Jen chooses the interracial family, a more and more regular phenomenon to express that love is the ultimate connection of our human beings and her faithful hope of a perfect utopian world with equality and full of love.Through the study of these three novels, we could see clearly Gish Jen’s own understanding of Utopia in her different periods of creation. In Typical American, she is trying to redefine the very meaning of American so as to construct a utopian world for the minority Americans. In Mona in the Promised Land, Gish Jen further expands her wish to all the Americans through Camp Gugelstein. And in The Love Wife, she bravely expresses her wishes and imagination of a beautiful utopian world through a representative interracial family.