Subversion And Reconstruction

In the Oriental discourse of American, the Chinese Americans are stereotyped and presented with false and negative images, which has been plaguing them for hundreds of years. As a special part of Chinese Americans, Chinese women become the "double others" of Caucasians and men, which means their images have been distorted and degraded more severely. The Woman Warrior is Kingston’s magnum opus, which reconstructs the Chinese female images and Chinese female history distorted by Oriental discourse and patriarchy through shaping a series of different Chinese female images in different periods. The novel pursues heroic tradition from two Chinese legendary women who are named Mulan and Cai Yan, as well as to rediscover the Chinese American women’s rebellious spirit. The Woman Warrior creates the heroine images of Chinese American women to imply a kind of living outlook based on liberalism, in the hope that they could find the right approach to solve issues of race and gender.The thesis is composed of five parts. The first part is an review and new classification of Chinese female images in American society, followed by the introduction of Chinese American Literature which is intended to resist the derogatory Chinese images through shaping heroic images or emphasizing heroism. Chapter one discusses the concept of " heroine". After probing into the "defeminization" in both Chinese and Western traditional heroic discourse, the thesis focuses on the new connotation of heroines in The Woman Warrior. Chapter two focuses on the subversion of stereotypes, and an analysis is given to reveal how Kingston rediscovers the heroic quality from three types of common Chinese women and reconstructs their real history at the same time. Chapter three illustrates the image of the ideal heroine. The woman warrior is an intermediary to connect the past, the present and the future of Chinese American women, and she can fight against racial prejudice and patriarchal oppression to improve Chinese American women’s social and cultural status by means of reviving sisterhood, pursuing gender equality based on gender distinction, and embracing cultural hybridity. By all these efforts, the Chinese American women would live in a harmonious world, just as Cai yan choose to sing with Huns’ accompaniment at last. These heroine images in The Woman Warrior is of great significance to help the new generation of Chinese American women build up confidence and find "a room of their own."...