（英语语言文学专业论文）食物与身份——论谭恩美之食物情结与身份追寻.pdf

food and identity on amy tans food complex and identity seeking ii 摘摘 要要 谭恩美是一位在西方社会具有一定影响力的华裔美国女作家，其代表作喜福会 、 灶神 之妻 、 灵感女孩等关注文化冲突，在美国当今文坛颇受欢迎。华裔美国女性的身份追寻历 来是谭恩美创作的着眼点，也是学术界一直探讨的焦点问题。而随着文化研究的兴起以及女性 主义的发展，食物这一意象也逐渐进入学者的视野。在谭恩美的小说中多处可见细致详尽的食 物描写，而食物描写也被这位华裔女性作家赋予了深刻的文化内涵和丰富的性别色彩。 以喜福会 、 灶神之妻 、 灵感女孩为例，本文将从文化和女性主义角度来阐述谭恩 美的食物情结与身份追寻之间的关系，旨在探讨谭恩美如何通过食物的刻画来展现华裔美国女 性对文化、性别双重身份的追寻。论文首先将食物与文化身份联系起来，通过食物描写分析谭 恩美在华裔美国女性文化身份追寻上的最终定位；然后又将食物与女性身份联系在一起，探讨 谭恩美如何通过食物刻画这一女性写作方式来发起对父权社会的反抗。 谭恩美对中国食物的关注表明了第二代移民对中国传统文化的追寻，而其笔下带有“东方 主义”色彩的中国食物正是体现了华裔美国女性文化身份的双重性。同时，作为一位女作家， 谭恩美也通过其独特的食物刻画表明：女性可以通过赢得厨房主导权、以食物为纽带建立母女 联盟等形式来宣告其主体性，获得其女性身份。文化身份和性别身份的双重追寻将进一步完善 华裔美国女性的身份建构。 关键词：关键词：谭恩美，食物，身份，文化身份，性别身份 南京航空航天大学硕士学位论文 i abstract amy tan is an influential chinese american woman writer in the western society. her representative works, such as the joy luck club, the kitchen gods wife, and the hundred secret senses, focus on the cultural conflicts and have gained popularity with the american readers. the identity seeking of the chinese american women has always been the motif of amy tans writing and the focus of the academic discussion. with the rise of cultural studies and the development of feminism, the food imagery has gradually attracted the scholars interest. in amy tans novels, there are many delicate and detailed food descriptions, which have been granted with profound cultural significance and abundant gender consciousnesses by such a chinese american woman writer. taking the joy luck club, the kitchen gods wife, and the hundred secret senses as examples, this thesis elaborates on the relationship between amy tans food complex and identity seeking from the cultural and feminist respects, and aims at exploring how amy tan demonstrates the cultural and gender identity seeking of the chinese american women through food. the thesis firstly links food with cultural identity, and based on food descriptions, analyzes amy tans final positioning in the cultural identity seeking of the chinese american women. then it connects food with female identity, and explores how amy tan fights against the patriarchal system through the feminine writing of food descriptions. amy tans concern for chinese food demonstrates the second generations seeking for traditional chinese culture, and the chinese foods colored with “orientalism” just imply the duality of the chinese american womens cultural identity. moreover, as a female writer, amy tan uses her unique food descriptions to demonstrate that women can declare their subjectivity and gain their gender identity through dominating the kitchen and establishing mother-daughter alliance using food as the link. the dual seeking of cultural identity and gender identity will make the construction of the chinese american womens identity more comprehensive. key words: amy tan, food, identity, cultural identity, gender identity 承诺书 本人郑重声明：所呈交的学位论文，是本人在导师指导下，独立 进行研究工作所取得的成果。尽我所知，除文中已经注明引用的内容 外，本学位论文的研究成果不包含任何他人享有著作权的内容。对本 论文所涉及的研究工作做出贡献的其他个人和集体， 均已在文中以明 确方式标明。 本人授权南京航空航天大学可以有权保留送交论文的复印件， 允 许论文被查阅和借阅,可以将学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数 据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或其他复制手段保存论文。 (保密的学位论文在解密后适用本承诺书) 作者签名： 日 期： 南京航空航天大学硕士学位论文 1 chapter one introduction in 1989, amy tan published the joy luck club, and gained her position as a chinese american writer in the literary world. later, she published the kitchen gods wife (1991) and the hundred secret senses (1995). the three novels are so popular with the american readers that amy tan has been recognized as a representative of the chinese american. besides, amy tan has written two more novels, two childrens books, and one non-fiction book. since amy tans novels are mainly about the experiences of chinese american immigrants and the second chinese americans, her success owes a great deal to the development of chinese american literature. generally speaking, chinese american literature is the creative work in english written by the americans of chinese origin. more than 120 years have passed since the publication of yan phou lees autobiography when i was a boy in china (1887), which stands for the beginning of chinese american literature. from accommodation and assimilation into the mainstream culture to emphasis of multiculturalism, chinese american literature has gradually become a main branch of american literature. it was in 1976 when maxine hong kingston published the woman warrior that chinese american literature had its first real impact on the american literature. later more chinese american writers emerged into the american literary arena and earned recognitions for the excellence and importance of their works, and amy tan is one of the most outstanding. born as the second generation of a chinese immigrant family, amy tan became an asian outsider in the american society, but she tried to reconcile the differences and contradictions between her ethnicity and the mainstream of western culture even when she was a child. little amy once even pinched her nose with a clothespin for a week, hoping that can help her have an american nose. (wei, 1993: 46) grown up, she once returned to china with her mother to find her half sisters, which enabled tan to reflect on the two cultures in her heritage and inspired her to write her first novel the joy luck club. later, amy tan chose writing as her life career. up till now, there have been various studies concerning amy tans novels, ranging from the explanations of her works to the issues of culture, race and identity. among the criticisms, there are three main categories: narratives; mother-daughter relationship, cultural conflicts and identities. as one of the representatives of chinese american writers, amy tan attracts the attention of the mainstream literature mostly because of her cultural background, and her identity seeking has been discussed by many scholars with great enthusiasm. in terms of cultural conflicts and identities, many critics such as amy ling have proposed the idea of a unified asian american identity, contending that chinese american women are caught “between worlds”. they need to food and identity on amy tans food complex and identity seeking 2 examine and recover their identities. in his essays, hu yamin concentrates on the issues of chinese american immigrants new recognition of their cultural identities. he looks at the dilemma of the chinese american mothers construction of identity and indicates their transformation and maturation through bicultural clashes and integration. the chinese american daughters have new recognitions to their cultural identities, changing from exclusion to curiosity about their minority national culture. (hu, 2002: 45-48) zhang ruihua explores how tans chinese american women solve the existing plight of being between different worlds and cultures through “chinese mah-jong”. (zhang, 2001: 95-100) identity seeking is amy tans main topic, but most of the studies focus their attention on the cultural identity, paying less attention to the female identity or even overlooking it. such an analysis is not comprehensive for amy tan, a well-known woman writer. when comparing books written by men of chinese ancestry and those written by women, amy ling discovered three startling facts: “first, women writers have been more numerous; second, women have written more books; third, womens books have been more authentic.” (ling, 1990: 15) chinese american women writers have made a greater contribution than their male counterparts. among the great chinese american women writers, amy tan is undoubtedly the most popular and prolific one. as is known to all, amy tan is one of the writers who are accomplished in portraying not only the mother-daughter relationship but also the females. in her novels, women become protagonists in place of men. hence, the identity seeking should include both the cultural identity and the female identity. furthermore, amy tans descriptions of chinese culture have attracted the american readers attention. but some critics questioned the authenticity of amy tans description. in aiiieeeee!: an anthology of asian american writers, frank chin and the editors are highly critical of what they perceive as tans exoticization of china and the chinese for a white mainstream audience. they think tans book resurrects the images of a backward east, of fragile women, and of heartless chinese men who oppress women, which caters for the racist taste. (chin, et al, 1974: xii) sau-ling cynthia wong points out that in tans stories, she connotes that china is a “savage” place, where only suffering and misfortune can be found. (wong, 1993: 56) chen aimin also points out tans betrayal and distortion of chinese culture, using the theory of orientalism. (chen, 2003: 43-48) for amy tan is an influential chinese american writer in the western society, it is worthwhile and meaningful to discuss whether amy tan tries to introduce chinese culture to the mainstream culture or just distorts chinese culture to cater for the white taste. food, as an important part in chinese culture, can be used to analyze amy tans cultural 南京航空航天大学硕士学位论文 3 descriptions. readers can find many food descriptions in amy tans novels. the joy luck club which is also the title of the novel is a gathering for the chinese americans to play mah-jong and eat food; the kitchen god, also the title of her another novel, is a traditional chinese god governing the issues in kitchen; in the hundred secret senses, many exotic food images attract the westerners interest. while reading amy tans novels, the western readers are more likely to be attracted by the chinese food descriptions, which they consider as the representative of chinese culture. eating is a fundamental activity for people to satisfy physical hunger as well as to keep surviving in the world. for human being “eating and speaking (the babys crying included) are what ritualize the activities of life from birth to death”. (gang, 1999: 375) since different people eat different kinds of food in particular situations, food as a special language can be employed to signify multiplied and comprehensive meanings encoded in appetite, ritual, gender, class, ethnicity, politics, hunger, desire and power, etc. as maud ellmann has said, “ hegel, feuerbach, marx, and freud, in spite of their divergences, agree that eating is the origin of subjectivity”. (ellmann: 1993: 30) in the process of eating, people develop their own independent subjectivity and identity. and for women, the provider of food, food and eating are especially essential in the daily life. hence, there is a close relationship between food and culture, food and women, food complex and identity seeking. up till now, some research has been done on the relationship between food and cultural identity. there are also some female scholars paying attention to food in their writings. margaret atwood, a famous canadian feminist writer, published the canlit foodbook in 1987. the mexican female writer laura esquivel even told a love story, interspersed with recipes, in her like water for chocolate. through describing food, an object having an intimate relation with women, the female writers want to show their differences with men, gain their positions in the literary circle, and help all the women obtain their identity and subjectivity in the patriarchal society. however, there are few systematic studies on amy tans works from such a perspective. therefore, this thesis will analyze amy tans food complex in the joy luck club, the kitchen gods wife, and the hundred secret senses. since amy tan is a representative of chinese american women writers, it is feasible and meaningful to explore the relationship between her food complex and identity seeking from the cultural, post-colonial, and feminist perspectives. the chinese american women under amy tans pen, in terms of the race and gender, both can be called the ethnic group. according to stuart hall, identity is “formed in the interaction between self and society”, and the inner core or essence of subject, “the real me”, is “formed and modified in a continuous dialogue with the outside cultural worlds and the identities which they food and identity on amy tans food complex and identity seeking 4 offer”. (hall, 1996: 597-598) hence, the chinese americans have to confront the issue of cultural identity because they are influenced by two different cultures. moreover, with the development of feminism, gender identity has attracted the scholars attention. it refers to how one thinks of ones own gender: whether one thinks of oneself as a man or as a woman or simply as a human being. marginalized by the patriarchal community, the chinese american women want to gain their independent position in the society, hating to be treated as a property of men, and demanding their female identity and subjectivity. consequently, to define cultural and gender identities by themselves becomes urgent for the chinese american women. as is known to all, in amy tans novels, there are two different worlds, the occident and orient, the relationship of which is what edward said called “a relationship of power, of domination, of varying degrees of a complex hegemony”. (said, 1994: 5) the construction of identity in every age and every society, according to said, involves the establishment of opposites and the “other”. in western intellectual discourse, the easterners are constructed as “other”, different from them, reduced to silence and demeaned as an image to be dominated. as a chinese american writer, amy tan takes her personal experience as the source of the mother generations knowledge, which empowers her as a speaker of mothers tradition, history and culture. while the personal experience writing justifies her as a speaker of chinese traditional culture, this empowerment also authorizes her to talk about the otherness of the mothers chinese culture. both the occidental and oriental factors can be displayed in her writing, and whether there is a western cultural dominance over chinese culture is a topic for many critics. besides, amy tans writing is often centered by the mother-daughter relationship, which is usually not good at the beginning. according to jacques lacan, the human psyche consists of three parts, or what he calls orders: the imaginary, the symbolic, and the real. luce irigaray draws a lot from it and argues that the mother-daughter relationship is harmonious in the imaginary order, but is deteriorated in the symbolic order and the daughter is in a state of “dereliction” then. so influenced by the patriarchal order, all the mother-daughter relationships are distorted in amy tans novels. in order to regain the mother-daughter harmony, in her paper “the bodily encounter with the mother” irigaray exhorts women to assert the “genealogy of women” within the family: “let us try to situate ourselves within this female genealogy so as to conquer and keep our destiny neither little girl nor woman must give up love for their mother. doing so uproots them from their identity, their subjectivity.”(whitford, 1991: 44) at the end of amy tans novels, the mothers and daughters gain understanding and reconciliation, and the harmonious mother-daughter relationship is achieved then. based on the theories mentioned above, this thesis is composed of four parts. the first 南京航空航天大学硕士学位论文 5 chapter briefly introduces amy tans literary achievements, the studies having been done about her identity seeking and food complex, the shortcomings of the previous studies, the important relations between food and identity, the writing purposes of this thesis, and the main approaches used in the thesis, including the theories of identity in the cultural studies, especially about the cultural and gender identities, edward saids orientalism, and luce irigarays “genealogy of women”. chapter two, consisting of three parts, explains how amy tan establishes the cultural identity for the characters through food descriptions. the first part briefly summarizes the relationship between food and culture, and the food descriptions in tans three novels. the second part further explains the relationship between food and cultural identity. the different preference in food shows the different cultural affirmation between the mothers and daughters, and the daughters loss of cultural identity is reflected in food choices as well. part three explains why amy tans food description seems exotic in the critics eyes, and points out that amy tan wants to seek the cultural identity through food descriptions, but as an american-born daughter of chinese origin, she can only achieve a bicultural identity in the end. chapter three, from the feminist perspective, explores how the females acquire their gender identity through food complex. it is composed of two parts. part one explains the different opinions in patriarchy and feminism on the relationship between food and women. part two discusses the relationships between food and female body, subjectivity, identity, and displays the female characters loss of gender identity in the novels reflected in food descriptions. it points out that women, as the provider of food, have the similar experience about food, and food can demonstrate the mothers love for the daughters, and help women form mother-daughter alliance in the kitchen to fight against the patriarchal society, gain their subjectivity, and obtain their gender identity. the last part is the conclusion of this thesis. through describing the exotic chinese food, amy tan helps the daughters gain the bicultural identities in the white society. as a woman writer, she also indicates that women can gain strength