A Study Of Celeste Ng’s Writing From The Perspective Of Post-Colonialism

Born after 1980,Celeste Ng is a Chinese American female writer,who is called “the next Amy Tan”.Her novels Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere have aroused public attention from American mainstream literature circles.There are not only some similarities between the past Chinese American’s writing and hers,but also innovations and developments,which reflects a new trend of writing and shows the living conditions and psychological changes of Chinese Americans in the new era.What’s more,Celeste Ng’s writing is influenced by post-colonialism.In fact,the development of Chinese American literature is closely related to the post-colonialism.In addition that,the post-colonialism provides readers with a new theoretical perspective to understand the writing of Chinese American.From the perspective of post-colonial theory,the identity crisis of Chinese American and the difficult survival problems faced by Chinese American women have been highlighted.This thesis analyzes those problems from the perspective of post-colonialism and expounds the new resistance strategies revealed in Celeste Ng’s writing.The thesis consists of six parts:The first part explains the significance of this thesis,provides a brief introduction of Celeste Ng,summarizes the current research of her,clarifies the theory and method used in this study,and presents the basic structure of the thesis;The second part is a brief review of the theoretical background of this thesis,which mainly introduces the relationship among colonialism,neocolonialism,post-colonialism and Chinese American literature,and the three representatives of post-colonial theory: Edward Said,Gayatri C.Spivak and Homi K.Bhabha;The third part analyzes the issue of the identity crisis of Chinese Americans in Everything I Never Told You from Orientalism perspective.That novel shows three generations of Chinese immigrants are facing serious identity crisis.No matter how hard they try,they can’t get rid of the dilemma of identity crisis.The root cause of which is “white centralism”;The fourth part uses Spivak theory to analyze female discourse.The female discourse in Celeste Ng’s writing has undergone new changes——the addition of a white female perspectiveand the comparison of white women with Chinese American women show the difficult situation of the latter in a double dilemma,which also make them realize that it’s inevitable for them to break through the dual barriers of patriarchalism and racism to get the right to speak.What’s more,Chinese American women should be vigilant against the orientalist discourse implied in white feminist theory;The fifth part analyzes the changes in Celeste Ng’s writing from the perspective of Homi Bhabha.She jumps out of ethnic limitations and shows human commonality from the perspective of outsiders,which has resonated with people on a larger scale.This is a new resistance strategy,reflecting the changes in the mentality and situation of Chinese American in the new era.These changes are closely related to the development of globalization,the rise of China’s national strength and the change of Sino-US relations,which also provides inspiration to the fight for the right to speak of Chinese American.The final part is the conclusion.