The Cultural Identity Construction Of Chinese American Female In Thirdspace

The thesis analyzes the cultural identity construction of Chinese American female in The Woman Warrior by dint of Edward Soja’s Thirdspace Theory and the framework of Jean S. Phinney’s Ethnic Identity Theory.Soja, enlightened by the space theories of French philosopher Lefebvre, advances the concepts of "firstspace","secondspace", and "thirspace". The firstspace is a perceptible and material space; the secondspace is an imaginative and subjective space; the thirdspace is the deconstruction and reconstruction of the firstspace and secondspace. The thirdspace contains many possibilities with many aspects converged:subjectivity&objectivity, abstractness&concreteness, imagination&reality. Through massive empirical experiments, Phinney demonstrates three stages that a marginal individual goes through for identity construction: identity unexamined, moratorium and identity achieved. The marginal individual in the first stage has no exploration and commitment of the special identity; in the second stage has insufficient efforts made for identity exploration; and in the third stage has commitment of cultural values and achievement of identity.It is inevitable for Chinese Americans to handle with cultural identity issues as they are living under the impacts from both Chinese culture and American culture. As a Chinese American female writer, Maxine Hong Kingston received American education and absorbed American culture and ideology whereas she could not evade the influence of Chinese traditional culture and ideology. Kingston’s meditation on the cultural identity construction of Chinese American female is fully revealed in her The Woman Warrior. Cultural differences between Chinese culture and American culture are exposed, and the way and process to construct the cultural identity are as well explained through the narration of the five stories in the book. The thesis selects30examples from The Woman Warrior which is composed by five chapters. The cultural identity construction analysis of Chinese American female is conducted in the framework of Soja’s Thirdspace Theory and Phinney’s Ethnic Identity Theory. Soja’s thirdspace theory breaks the traditional binary logic and puts forward the trialectic thinking mode, which provides a new perspective and background for the cultural identity construction of Chinese American female in The Woman Warrior. The opening thirdspace, full of all kinds of possibilities and encompassing manifold aspects of Chinese and American cultures, is established in The Woman Warrior through Kingston’s taking changing perspectives and combined narratives, through her depicting the image "ghost" in an abstract and concrete method, and through her revealing the resistance against the two cultures. According to Phinney’s theory, this thesis analyzes the unexamined identity of Moon Orchid in "The Western Palace", moratorium status of Brave Orchid in "Shaman", achieved identities of Fa Mulan in "White Tigers", and of Ts’ai Yen in "A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe". A conclusion can be drawn through analysis that for Chinese American female, the optimum cultural identity can be achieved by tolerating the two cultures, discarding the dregs and preserve the cream of either Chinese culture or American culture.