"The Other"----a Study Of Chinese Images In Chinese American Literature From The Perspective Of Orientalism

From the 19th century till now, Chinese American literature has gone through three stages: the initial stage, the transitional stage and the prosperous stage. Now, because of the cultural globalization, it has become more widely accepted and popular than ever.This thesis takes a macroscopic view to deal with Chinese American literature as a whole rather than analyzing different works of different writers separately. It analyzes three representative works in three major stages of Chinese American literature, which are Fifth Chinese Daughter by Jade Snow Wong, The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston and The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism is used in this thesis to analyze those works. Under this perspective, the thesis tries to reveal a general tendency of Chinese American writers’ efforts to depict Chinese images as the alienated "other".The thesis tries to explore what are the stereotyped and alienated Chinese images in the western readers’mind. Chinese American literature plays a crucial role in shaping Chinese images in western world. Chinese American writers cater to western reader’s curiosity by constructing Orientalism from the following four aspects:the appearances and behaviors of Chinese, their thinking mode, their family values and their voiceless condition in society.In addition, the thesis also focuses on why Chinese American writers create these exotic Chinese images on purposely. First, living in the American society and under the influence of American culture, these writers has found some good qualities of American culture, and they tend to regard themselves as one of the Americans. So they are deliberately drawing a line between themselves and their parents and ancestors. Second, their writing materials about China and Chinese images are from the story-telling of their parents and they use a lot of imagination to complete their works. They lack a systematic understanding of traditional Chinese culture and background. In this way, Chinese images in their works are not real. Those images are either distorted or exaggerated.The thesis is an application of the theory Orientalism, which combined cultural and political factors in analyzing literary works. With the rise of China’s economic and political status in the world, it is necessary for the readers to understand that the alienated Chinese images are partial. This thesis offers an opportunity for more and more people to reconsider Chinese images.