The Identity Construction Of Diasporic Chinese In"Third Space"

David Henry Hwang is a representative of Chinese-American playwrights. His masterpiece M. Butterfly is a subversive version of Madam Butterfly, calling for the West and the East to break through various prejudices and stereotypes and reconsider their relationship. Adopting Homi Bhabha’s concept of "Third Space" and related theories as theoretical perspective, M. Butterfly as text, this thesis studies Hwang’s effort to explore the deconstruction of Orientalist discourse and the construction of identity for diasporic Chinese in the western world. This thesis explores the deep multicultural outlook in M. Butterfly on the basis of Bhabha’s postcolonialism, hoping to provide a new perspective for the research of identity construction of diasporic Chinese in the Global Age.This thesis includes introduction and four chapters. Introduction briefly introduces the playwright David Henry Hwang and the target text M. Butterfly. Chapter One first puts forward the problem of Chinese-American identity construction in Chinese American literature, and then introduces Homi Bhabha’s concept of "Third Space" and related theories as the theoretical basis of this thesis. Chapter Two discusses the mimicry strategy of which Hwang makes effective use in his effort to challenge and deconstruct the dominating Orientalist discourse as typified by Madame Butterfly in his M. Butterfly. In the light of Bhabha’s theories of hybridity and "Third Space", Chapter Three interprets the strategy that Hwang applies in integrating Chinese traditional culture with Western culture to compose a new "Song of Myself"—identity construction of diasporic Chinese in the "Third Space". Chapter Four concludes this thesis with an emphasis on the significance of Homi Bhabha’s concept of "Third Space" for the identity construction of diasporic Chinese and the implication of David Henry Hwang’s creative exploration in the M. Butterfly.