The Study On Self-reconstruction Of Chinese American Female In The Hundred Secret Senses

Amy Tan is undoubtedly the most representative one among the Chinese American writers and is regarded as the pioneer all the time who has brought Chinese American literature to American mainstream literature. In1989, her maiden work The Joy Luck Club win great fame for her. Then, her prominent novels The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991), The Hundred Secret Senses (1995), The Bonesetters Daughter (2001), Saving Fish From Drowning (2005) enjoy great popularity successively among American readers. Her novels have aroused numerous attention from literary circle. Amy Tan not only gains recognition from the public but also establishes her cultural position as a Chinese American. She manages to integrate Chinese culture with American culture and sets a good example for countless Chinese American females. She is skilled in writing the theme of mother-daughter relationship and cultural identity. A great many scholars at home and abroad have made comments on Amy Tan’s novels from the perspectives of feminism, cultural criticism, marginalized culture, and so on.By reading a lot of relative materials, the writer of this paper finds that the topic of the self-reconstruction of Chinese American female in The Hundred Secret Senses is worth probing into, because it is still a hot topic which has much room to explore further and deeper in the Chinese American literature research and more Chinese Americans will benefit from this topic.This thesis consists of five parts, the introduction, three chapters and the conclusion included.The first part is an introduction of the whole paper, which briefly introduce the Chinese American literature. Amy Tan and her novels, the general plot of The Hundred Secret Senses, the previous study and literature review of The Hundred Secret Senses and the relevant theories the author will use in the next chapters, which includes Said’s Orientalism, Homi Bhabha’s Third Space and Zhang Longxi’s theory about the formation of the self.From chapter one to chapter three, the author discusses the two half-sisters how to re-construct themselves from the aspects of kinship affection, marriage and cultural identity. Chapter one, from the perspective of kinship affection, first of all, analyzes Olivia accomplishes her self-reconstruction from her misunderstanding of her Chinese half-sister Kwan to integration with Kwan. Secondly, the author discusses as a Chinese Other Kwan’s miserable experience in China and her embarrassed state in America and in the end Kwan breaks down the stereotype of Chinese or Chinese American female imposed by the Occident and establishes a new image of Chinese female.Chapter two, from the perspective of marriage, constructs the process of Olivia’s self-reconstruction from marriage crisis to marriage regression.Chapter three, from the perspective of cultural identity, discusses the process of Olivia and Kwan’s self-reconstruction from conflicts to fusion between Chinese culture and American culture.The last part is the conclusion. In this part, the author discusses the aim and finding of this research, briefly concludes the process and results of Olivia and Kwan’s self-reconstruction. In addition, the author also points out the importance and the limitations that exist in this thesis and comes up with some constructive suggestions for the future research.From the perspective of self-reconstruction, through detailed study of the two main female characters in The Hundred Secret Senses, this thesis aims to illustrate Amy Tan’s great contribution to Chinese American literature and points out the necessity of the fusion between Chinese culture and American culture and of the defining Chinese Americans’ identity as Third Space.