A Study Of Amy Tan’s Autobiographical Novels From The Perspective Of Post-colonial Feminism

Since Amy Tan (1952—) published her first novel The Joy Luck Club in1989, herworks have made great success. Until now Amy Tan has published five novels, threecollections of essays and two children’s books. In American multicultural society, as animportant female writer in Chinese American literary history, her position has surpassed anovelist of minority and become one of the most famous writers not only in America but alsoall over the world.Most of the early Chinese American women literature belongs to autobiographicalliterature both in theme and content. It can even go further than that autobiographical novel isthe most important and well-developed literary form in Chinese American women literature.(程爱民,2003) The autobiographical novels of Amy Tan are the self-writing of femaleidentity and ethnic identity. As a descendant of the first generation of the Chinese Americans,she has special life experience. She takes the personal experiences of her mother and herselfand the stories she heard from elder generations as the subjects and writing backgrounds ofher novels. Through autobiographical novels, Amy Tan focuses her sight on ChineseAmerican women who have been suffering from unequal treatment for a long time anddescribes their living condition of being “marginalized” by American mainstream society andbeing defined as “other” in the aspects of race, gender, language and culture. Her novelsexplore the approaches to construct self identity in the conflicts of Chinese and Americanmainstream culture and embody their great efforts to realize Chinese American women’sindependence and liberation under the patriarchal domination and racial oppression. AmyTan’s autobiographical novels provides effective textual strategies to narrate ChineseAmerican women’s condition of being “marginalized” and being defined as “other” inAmerican mainstream society and to explore the approaches to seek and construct their ownself identity. Therefore, by interpreting Amy Tan’s autobiographical novels fromautobiographical criticism and post-colonial criticism, it provides effective approaches toresearch the topic like self identity constructing in gender, race and culture of subculturegroups in the background of contemporary multiculture.In this thesis, autobiographical criticism and post-colonial feminism are used to interpret Amy Tan’s three autobiographical novels——The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife andThe Bonesetter’s Daughter. It interprets three-dimensional facts in three novels and thenexplores the living conditions and spiritual encounters of Chinese American women who havebeen “marginalizing” by Chinese traditional feudal culture and American mainstream culture,and describes their depression of being defined as “other” by both cultures. It reveals theprocess from aphasia to gaining voice and explores the ways and approaches for ChineseAmerican women to construct their self identity.This thesis consists of five parts.Chapter one is the introduction to Amy Tan and her three autobiographical novels andgeneralizes the literature review at home and abroad.Chapter two engages in the literary theories used in this paper——autobiographicalcriticism and post-colonial feminism. Three-dimensional fact in autobiographical criticismincludes autobiographical fact, biographical fact and historical fact. These three facts perfectharmony in trinity constitutes three-dimensional fact of autobiographical novels.(赵白生,2003:32) Both post-colonialism and feminism devote themselves to revealing women’sinequality in the political relation and helping the weak and the marginalized group to gaintheir rights. The post-colonial feminism, deriving from the above two theories, takes “race”,“gender” and “class” into consideration to better analyze the living status of the third-worldwomen.Chapter three analyzes the autobiographical features of Amy Tan’s novels from three-dimensional fact theory. Autobiographical fact is the trajectory of self development and it isthe fact used to construct self development. Amy Tan’s personal life and her view of fate andfaith as well as her creation view are autobiographical facts. Biographical fact is “announcingthe relationship with others”, such as the relationship between mother and daughter in AmyTan’s novels. Historical fact is “announcing the relationship with the era”. Take the exampleof gender and racial discrimination and oppression that Chinese American women havesuffered not only in China but also in America. Through the analysis of three-dimensional factin Amy Tan’s novels, it reveals how the Chinese American women who have suffered a lot inold China come to America with their “American Dream” and the discrimination andoppression they have experienced as “other” of marginalized group in American mainstreamsociety. Chapter four interprets the process and approaches for Chinese American women to seekand construct their self identity from the perspective of post-colonial feminism. Amy Tan’sautobiographical novels reflect Chinese American women’s efforts from awakening to resistracial, gender and cultural oppression, and their efforts to break the silence by telling storiesabout China and seeking roots so as to seek for self identity, and finally construct their selfidentity by self-writing.The last chapter is conclusion. As one of the representatives of Chinese American femalewriters, Amy Tan’s autobiographical novels are not only her own autobiography but also anepitome of the hard struggle of the whole Chinese American women in the United States ofAmerica, as well as the national biography which highlights the journey of heart of ChineseAmerican women. Under the background of globalization and multiculture, Amy Tanarticulates her unique voice and seek for her cultural identity in the conflicts of Chineseculture and American mainstream culture, showing the constant efforts for self-improvementof Chinese American women. By interpreting Amy Tan’s autobiographical novels fromautobiographical criticism and post-colonial feminism, this thesis provides effectiveapproaches to the construction of self identity for the subculture groups.