Cultural Ecological Study Of Typical American

As a representative of the Chinese-American writers emerging in the1970s when Chinese-American literature began to make amazing progress, Gish Jen gives an incisive interpretation of cultural difference in her maiden work Typical American. However, such profundity and uniqueness in her story has not been fully revealed by previous studies and critics from cultural perspective with the support of systematic theories. Centering on the theme of cultural adaption to environment, this thesis aims to interpret Typical American by applying Julian Haynes Steward’s cultural ecological theory.Cultural ecology is a term mainly used to explain the process of cultural adaption to the environment. Cultural ecology believes that culture is not a direct product of any isolable acts or events; rather, mountains, oceans and other natural elements, different economic patterns, various social structures, different cultural ideologies, etc. all contribute to a diverse and unique environment for a particular culture to develop. Therefore, cultural ecology studies! cultural emergence and development via the interaction between various factors from both natural and social environment of human existence.Based on J. H. Steward’s cultural ecology theory, this thesis explores the cultural shocks experienced by the Changs in their American experience and the reasons behind. Geographical conditions, economic patterns, social structures and the mainstream culture ofS: both China and America are taken into account. It demonstrates that numerous cultural differences involved in Typical American are attributed to the different ecological environments of the two cultures.Based on the above analysis, it is concluded that Gish Jen’s illustration of cultural issue in Typical American is in accordance with J. H. Steward’s cultural ecology theory. It could help subvert social stereotypes imposed on minorities in the cultural life of the United States. Meanwhile, the study hopes to enrich the practice of literary criticism with the introduction of cultural-ecological reading and thus provide a positive reference for later researchers.