From Confrontation To Coexistence:Study On Gender Relationship In Castillo's Novels

Ana Castillo is one of the renowned contemporary Mexican-American novelists as well as a representative of the Chicana feminists.Her works have a close relationship with women's issues.The Mixquiahuala Letters,Peel My Love Like an Onion,and The Guardians are her excellent works.The twenty-year time span among these three novels has seen changes in Castillo's creation,especially about the gender relationship.Therefore,this thesis tries to probe into the change of the gender relationship in the three novels and explore Castillo's attitude to the gender relationship.On the basis of Feminist theory,this thesis aims to explore the change of the gender relationship from confrontation to coexistence presented in The Mixquiahuala Letters,Peel My Love Like an Onion,and The Guardians.In The Mixquiahuala Letters,the Chicano and the Chicana completely stand against each other.In the patriarchal society,the Chicana are oppressed and discriminated bitterly by men.As a feminist,Castillo has argued that the Chicana should fight against men to protect themselves from being oppressed and discriminated.And in Peel My Love Like an Onion,with the further development of feminism,Castillo reconsiders the gender relationship.In this novel,the Chicana strengthen their female subjective consciousness gradually.They achieve spiritual and material independence with their effort.At the same time,the Chicano start to affirm women and femininity after self-reflection.In short,the gender relationship is improved.In The Guardians,realizing that men and women are inseparable and complementarity,Castillo shows a warm picture that the Chicano and the Chicana live in coexistence.Mutual care,mutual respect,mutual trust and love of the Chicano nation are the key parts to build gender coexistence.