A Study Of Gish Jen's View On Cultural Identity

Identity is both sensitive and complicated to the Chinese Americans living in a foreign country.Over one and a half centuries,Chinese American literature grows out of nothing.From unknown to be heard,from growing up in the crack to enter the American literature history,though experiencing an uneven road,it has attracted wide range of attention.Among them,Gish Jen is one who attracts extensive attention and is out of the ordinary.She has unique opinion on ethnic cultural identity.This thesis tries to take Gish Jen's two representative novels Typical American and Mona in the Promised Land as case studies,using Homi K Bhabha's cultural hybridity theory,and taking identity as the entry point to have a close reading of the texts,and to have a deep analysis of Gish Jen's view,strategy,transcendence and position to Chinese American identity.Under Gish Jen's pen,identity features hybridity and fluidity.Compared with other Chinese American writers,Gish Jen's writing is more unique.As one of the representatives of the American minority writers,in fact,her writing has transcended ethnicity.Her writing and identity view have great significance to the development of Chinese American literature.The framework is as follows:Chapter One: have a brief overview of the writer's writing background and her writing characteristics in the context of the development of Chinese American literature.Chapter Two: Using Homi K Bhabha's culture theory to analyze her two novels Typical American and Mona in the Promised Land,in order to explore her writing identity.Chapter Three: Analyze Gish Jen's transcending ethnicity writing as well as the significance to Chinese American literature and other writers.