The Pursuit And Construction Of Chinese-American Women’s Ethnic Identity: An Analysis Of The Women Warrior From The Perspective Of Space Theory

Maxine Hong Kingston’s monumental work The Woman Warrior has absolutely enabled her to get the reputation and great concern from readers and critics,which motivated her into the top of the literary world since the year 1976.The significance of the work was fully expressed in terms of Kingston’s great concerns about the Chinese women immigrants with unique style and cultural awareness.Since the publication of the novel,many academic papers and monographs on The Woman Warrior appeared.Many scholars and researchers have focused their study on gender and racial discrimination,marginal culture,post-colonialism,traditional Chinese images,narrative strategies as well as the heroine’s growth.Different from the previous study perspective,this thesis aims to adopt the space theory,especially the notion of spatial theory from Lefebvre and Foucault,to investigate the relationship between space and the Chinese American women’s seeking of ethnic identity and self-value.Specifically,the thesis will explore the process and effort the three Chinese American women,namely No Name Woman,Moon Orchid,Brave Orchid have made in seeking and constructing their ethnic and cultural identity as well as their self-value and independence based on the analysis of the change of space(physical space,social space and mental space)and the change of spatial power.The thesis begins with the brief introduction to Maxine Hong Kingston and The Woman Warrior.In the first chapter,the spatial turn and space theory,especially Lefebvre’s theory of space and its development as well as its influence will be discussed.The second chapter will deal with the relationship between representational space and the women’s identity issues.The third chapter will deal with spatial practice and the Chinese American women’s confusion of identity and their pursuit of independence in the plight of racial and sexual prejudices in American society as social space.The fourth chapter will turn to the individual or mental space and the regaining of self-value.Finally,the thesis comes to the conclusion that the space in the novel is not purely physical but indicating power relationship.The physical space,social space and mental space of the individuals work together to promote the Chinese-American women’s pursuit of the ethnic identity and their realization of self-value under bicultural context.