Beyond virtue and vice: The literary self in Chinese-American literature

The purpose of this project is to inquire into the concept of the Chinese American selves. The paper examines the depiction of the selves by Chinese American writers from the earliest to the present in a wide variety of individual works of all major forms, such as fiction, drama, poetry, and autobiography.; My thesis is that contrary to the popular stereotypes in American literature, the selves in Chinese American literary works are not defined by their virtues or vices; instead they are characterized by their inner conflicts resulting from living between the demands of the two conflicting cultures and by their search for an authentic Chinese American self. There are two major types of Chinese American selves, created or revealed, who populate many narratives and other literary forms. One is the alienated self, and the other, the individualist self.; The first part of this paper is an analysis of the alienated selves. It shows that as a consequence of their uprooting experience of immigration and racial discrimination the alienated selves are isolated from others as well as from their own persons. It also shows that like all other alienated souls the alienated selves in Chinese American literature suffer from a lack of identity, fragmentation, powerlessness, and self-hatred that trail behind their estrangement in relation to others and their own selves.; The second part is a study of the individualist selves. It demonstrates that different from the stereotypical conformist Chinese Americans, the individualist selves reject conformity to any sociocultural institutions and the expectations of others, especially the preconceptions of others about Chinese Americans. It points out that often the individualist selves are creative persons, writers or story-tellers, who seek coherence of the world in fabricating their own myths and history.; The study concludes that despite their contrasting qualities and marginal status, both alienated and individualist selves are conceived as members of a community and as sharing part in a long history of people struggling to define their own existence. In their quest for liberty and insistence on being treated as equals, the selves in Chines American literature express the democratic ideal of American culture, and by so doing, they have established their bond with indigenous Americans as well as all the rest of humanity.