| This study identifies contemporary Chinese and African-American female writers who give voice to a historically alienated group within their cultures. In their fiction, Zhang Jie, Wang Anyi, and Toni Morrison, bring issues of gender polarization within a given society to the forefront and demonstrate a disregard for existing literary conventions in their handling of theme, point of view, and character development.; This study explores Love Must Not Be Forgotten and The Ark by Zhang Jie, Love on a Barren Mountain, Love in a Small Town, Brocade Valley and "Brothers" by Wang Anyi, and Toni Morrison's Paradise. In these narratives the definition of the feminine self is linked to the formation of sisterhoods in which gender alienation is overcome and the self is recognized. This thesis is a study of representative literature that illustrates why and how relationships and bonds between women occur, proliferate, and flourish in these two cultures. |
