Female Marginalization And Aphasia In Chinese American Literature

Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan are the outstanding representatives of Chinese American woman writer in the modern time. Their masterpieces, The Woman Warrior and The Bonesetter’s Daughter, have won consistent praise and aroused wide concerns in academic circles. Kinston and Amy make a detailed exposition about the Chinese American female images and the exquisite female relationships, which reflects their keen insights, unique writing styles, rich imagination and their female consciousness as well.These works mainly reveal the conflicts between Chinese traditional culture and American reality, conflicts between Chinese-Americans and Whites, and the dual oppression of Chinese American women from patriarchal society and the western hegemonism. As we all know, American society is a western capitalist society which centers on white men, whereas other minorities are suffering from a variety of unfair treatments and even play the supporting role for white men in all aspects in American society. Moreover, the weak group of Chinese American women, discriminated by race,gender or culture and placed in the social marginalization zone, could not speak out their minds. Based on the postcolonial feminism theory, this paper explores the different Chinese American women’s experiences in The Woman Warrior and The Bonesetter’s Daughter, analyzes the marginalized living states of Chinese American women.Postcolonial feminism theory holds the view that the patriarchal society deprives of women’s rights and the western hegemonic culture put oppressions on the third world women. In the light of theoretical basis of postcolonial feminism theory, this paper focuses on making a detailed analysis about woman image features serving as the marginalized “other” & “aphasia” in The Woman Warrior and The Bonesetter’s Daughter, by searching the deeper reasons for the marginalization and aphasia for Chinese American women’s under the double oppression from both patriarchal society or the hegemonic culture. Furthermore, this paper finally attempts to point out a way for Chinese American women to seek or reconstruct themselves to avoid being marginalized or aphasic.By analyzing Chinese American female images in The Woman Warrior and The Bonesetter’s Daughter, the main purpose of this work is to reveal the third women’s dilemma of being marginalized and their loss of voice so as to encourage ChineseAmerican women to construct their social principal status and break silence or regain voice as well. Besides, this paper aims to show that only by knowing the common needs and the objective of the struggle of those Chinese American women who live under the oppression from patriarchal society as well as the cultural differences, can we have a further understanding of how to define their appropriate cultural identities so as to get social respects and recognitions. These all have profound and social significance for Chinese American women to reconstruct their cultural identities, eliminate the binary oppositions and then establish harmonious relationships between two sexes.