Imagination Of China In Maxine Hong Kingston's Novels

The Woman Warrior and China Men are the most representative books of Maxine Hong Kingston.The Woman Warrior shows the miserable experiences of Chinese women,and China Men reveals the difficult livings and struggling histories of Chinese men.The two books find the reasons why Chinese always keeps silent.For a long time,most researches discuss the text from the view of feminist,but there are few people study the text from the point of Chinese imagination.Maxine Kingston's imagination of China runs through the whole text of the two books.The thesis concentrates on elaborating how to express Chinese imagination,and how to use the imagination to establish the impression of China.The first chapter is secret living.From the view of Chinese food and Chinese ghost,this chapter shows how Maxine Kingston expresses her imagination of Chinese food and ghost.Chinese food and Chinese ghost give a poor impression on China,and China is an underdeveloped country in the white people's minds.The second chapter is compulsive silence.In the background of the American culture,Chinese-Americans cannot have the rights of announcement.Chinese-American women are repressed by the hegemony of masculinity and racialism,so Chinese-American women have to lose their rights to ask equality.The third chapter is retelling traditional Chinese tales.As a Chinese-American,Maxine Hong Kingston narrates Chinese tales in her books,but her Chinese tales aren't traditional Chinese tales.Through telling Chinese tales,Kingston's Chinese tales are totally different from their Chinese edition.The chapter discusses how Maxine Hong Kingston retells Chinese tales,and how the new Chinese tales change Americans' view of China.The fourth chapter is agreeing with the identity of America.From the imagination of China,this chapter summarizes meanings of the imagination and finds the confusion of existence.This imagination builds a positive impression on Chinese.However,in the text of Maxine Hong Kingston,through her comparison with the powerful America,China is an impoverished country.Because of the comparison between China and America,Maxine Hong Kingston establishes democratic America,which expresses Chinese-Americans' hope to integrate into Americans.The core of the thesis is to find the intention of Maxine Hong Kingston's imagination of China,from the point of her two books,by using image study of comparative literature.In the view of Chinese existence,Maxine Hong Kingston shows her hope to become a real American,and agreement to the American value.