An Analysis On Chinese American Female Identity In The Woman Warrior From The Perspective Of Space Theory

The Woman Warrior is the best-known and representative work of the famous Chinese American woman writer--Maxine Hong Kinston.This book made a big hit since its publication and it was analyzed from different points of view,which have greatly added the literary connotation to The Woman Warrior.Among these,female identity was kept as the main focus.While few of the critics adopted space theory to analyze this book.Actually there is no lack of description on space in The Woman Warrior.Although they are not at length,they all have important symbolic meanings.And the inequality of women were illustrated skillfully by Kingston through describing different space images.Focusing on Maxine Hong Kinston's The Woman Warrior,this paper combines space theory,especially Henri Lefebvre's spatial triad and Soja's third space,with female identity studies,to probe into the three Chinese American women's process of their confusion of identity in first space,pursuit of identity in second space and the construction of space in third space.The three Chinese American women actually live in three kinds of spaces.First space is physical space.Through analyzing the physical space of the three women like body,home,school and Chinatown,their confusion about their identity will be clearly revealed;Second space is imagined space,in which Fa Mu Lan is imagined creatively as a brand new image.With the analysis of the characteristics of the new Fa Mu Lan and its plots,we can see the effort and yearning for constructing the new self of the women in The Woman Warrior;Third space not only combines the former two,but also goes beyond them.Through their confusion of identity in first space,pursuit of identity in second space,these three Chinese American women finally successfully construct their identity in third space.Through the combination of space theory and identity study,the exploration of Chinese American women's identity issue in this thesis will not only enrich the research on The Woman Warrior,but also expand identity study from the perspective of space theory.