（英语语言文学专业论文）论《女勇士》对美国东方主义的颠覆与超越.pdf

iii 论女勇士对美国东方主义的颠覆与超越论女勇士对美国东方主义的颠覆与超越 研究生：邱食存 年级：2005 级 学科专业：英语语言文学 指导老师：陆小虹 张叔宁 研究方向：英美文学 中文摘要中文摘要 凭借汤亭亭的女勇士 ，当代亚裔美国文学一举改变了其在美国文学中的地位。然 而，对该书的解读远非同是喝彩。一方面， 女勇士被广泛地解读为女权主义杰作；另 一方面，许多学者则认为其反对的主要是传统中国文化中的父权制和性别歧视，对白人主 流社会中的种族歧视和性别歧视却不太关注。对他们而言， 女勇士有意无意地强化了 东方主义思维模式，因而从某种程度上宣扬了白人至上主义。 作为美国主流的霸权主义话语，美国东方主义得到美国文学和美国媒体的广为宣传， 已经在美国主流意识中扎下了根；作为当时唯一一部主要华美作品， 女勇士不可能一 下子铲除这种东方主义思维及其在文学中的呈现。或多或少，华裔美国文学批评似乎走入 了唯东方主义批评是瞻的死胡同。这对华美作家显然是不公平的。因为中华文化是他们创 作之本，而他们又生活在美国文化之中，这就难免要同时涉及两种文化。事实上，文化之 间除了对立，更有和谐共存的一面。我们应该“承认并恢复东方主体及其价值观” ，用中 华文化中“天人合一”等思想价值观弥合东西方差异、共创人类美好未来。 本文分为五章。第一章在简要介绍了汤亭亭生平及其主要作品后，提出了将美国东方 主义作为华裔美国文学主要批评标准之局限性的问题。第二章首先在分析美国东方主义主 要特征的基础上，对美国主流文学中的东方主义呈现做了一次简要的历史社会性再现，以 便进一步说明承受美国东方主义之重的华裔美国文学作家所处的窘境。接着，通过颇受争 议的女勇士文本，作者从四个方面阐释美国东方主义影响之顽固、引起误读之广泛。 第三章本着历史与社会的角度，详尽地阐明了汤亭亭通过再现/颠覆这一叙述策略对美国 东方主义所做的颠覆性再现。第四章提出了如何在华裔美国文学批评中超越东方主义、以 “天人合一”等东方价值作为评价标准的问题，以便能给出更为积极的、更有启示性意义 的解读。第五章是结论，旨在指出女勇士对美国东方主义作出了有力颠覆，为美国文 学创造出一些很有启示意义的女性人物形象，同时还充分体现了中华传统文化基本价值观 天人合一。 女勇士不失为是一部杰作。 关键词：关键词： 女勇士 ；颠覆；超越；美国东方主义；天人合一 iv on the woman warriors subversion and transcendence of american orientalism postgraduate: qiu shicun grade: 2005 major field of study: english language on the other hand, many scholars argue that what it rebels mainly is patriarchy and sexism in old china, not racism and sexism in the white mainstream. to them, the woman warrior consolidates, consciously or unconsciously, orientalist dualism and so, to some extent, airs white supremacy. as a hegemonic discourse of the white mainstream, american orientalism has been represented extensively by white american literature and media and firmly roots in the consciousness of the white; the woman warrior being the only major chinese american book of that time, it is just impossible for maxine hong kingston to root out completely american orientalism and its representation, though she means to do so. more or less, chinese american criticism seems to go into a blind lane of interpreting chinese american writers works through orientalism. it is unfair to them. if chinese culture is the root of their writing and american culture is where they live, how do they avoid referring to the two cultures at the same time? as a matter of fact, between cultures, there is not only conflict but also harmonious coexistence. we should “realize and restore the easts subjectivity and values” and bridge, with the chinese thoughts such as “oneness of nature and man,” the differences between the east and the west for the better future of mankind. this thesis has five chapters. chapter one introduces briefly maxine hong kingston and her major works and puts forth the issue of the limitation of american orientalism taken as the major critical criterion of chinese american writing. chapter two firstly analyzes the characteristics of american orientalism and then gives american orientalism in the white american literature a historical and social representation so as to further explain how heavy american orientalist burden is to chinese american writers. then through the disputable text the woman warrior, the author shows from four dimensions the bigotry of american orientalism and its extensive influence in the misreading of the woman warrior. from a historical and social perspective, chapter three goes on to explain how the text subverts american orientalist discourse through the narrative tactic of representation/deconstruction. in chapter four, the author puts forward the issue of how to transcend the influence of orientalism v and use chinese values such as “oneness of nature and man” as critical standards in criticizing chinese american writing so as to give out some more positive and constructive readings. chapter five is the conclusion of the thesis, which aims to point out that the woman warrior has made a strong subversion of american orientalism, created some instructive women characters for american literature and represented confidently “oneness of nature and man”one fundamental value of chinese culture, and so it is a great book. key words: the woman warrior; subversion; transcendence; american orientalism; oneness of nature and man 论文独创性声明论文独创性声明 本人郑重声明：所提交的学位论文是本人在导师的指导下进行的研究工 作及取得的成果。除文中已经注明引用的内容外，本论文不含其他个人或其 他机构已经发表或撰写过的研究成果。对本文的研究做出重要贡献的个人和 集体，均已在文中以明确方式标明。本人承担本声明的法律责任。 研究生签名： 日期： 论文使用授权声明论文使用授权声明 本人完全了解广西师范大学有关保留、使用学位论文的规定。广西师范 大学、中国科学技术信息研究所、清华大学论文合作部，有权保留本人所送 交学位论文的复印件和电子文档，可以采用影印、缩印或其他复制手段保存 论文。本人电子文档的内容和纸质论文的内容相一致。除在保密期内的保密 论文外，允许论文被查阅和借阅，可以公布（包括刊登）论文的全部或部分 内容。论文的公布（包括刊登）授权广西师范大学学位办办理。 研究生签名： 日期： 导 师签名： 日期： ii acknowledgements in finishing this thesis, i owe a great deal to many people. first of all, i would like to express my hearty gratitude to my supervisor associate professor lu xiaohong for her valuable suggestions and patient guidance. without her support and encouragement, the thesis would not have achieved its present shape. then i would like to thank sincerely professor zhang shuning for his instructive suggestions which i found indispensable to better my thesis. i would also like to thank professor liu yuhong, professor bai jingze, dr. ray wright and all other teachers who have contributed so much valuable instruction and equipped me with so many inspirations during the three-year m.a. study. finally i would like to thank zhao suhua, zeng lingzhi and all other friends for their help and encouragement in the process of writing this thesis. 1 chapter 1 introduction if there was a book that changed profoundly the status of contemporary asian american literature in american literature, it was maxine hong kingstons the woman warrior: memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts (1976). with this one book, asian american writing “entered the mainstream, appealing simultaneously to the general reader and the scholarly community” (huntley, 2001: 75). the books “appeal to the shared category of gender produced a heterogeneous readership beyond ethnicityand its extensive review and study by critics of legitimate cultural affiliations also enabled the scholarly excavation and preservation of asian american literary tradition” (li, 1999: 44). the woman warrior has even been identified by the modern language association of america as one of the most frequently assigned twentieth-century literary texts by a living author on american high school, college, and university campuses (the association has sponsored the instructive book approaches to teaching kingstons the woman warrior). 1. 1 maxine hong kingston and her major works maxine hong kingston (b. 1940) was born to the first generation of chinese immigrants in stockton, california. while spending much of her childhood washing, drying and pressing in her parents laundry, kingston and her five siblings would listen to their mother “talk story,” an oral tradition that is a combination of legends, folklore, ghost stories and anecdotes. listening to her mother “talk story” and reading extensively and voraciously helped kingston to develop her own skills as a storyteller. in 1958, kingston attended the university of california, berkeley, where she began to pursue writing. originally planning to study engineering because of her capacity for mathematics, but by her second year, kingston changed to a major more conducive to a writing career. after graduating in 1962, she married earl kingston and took a teaching job in hayward, california. in 1967, the kingstons moved to hawaii, where kingston began writing the woman warrior and china men, both of which borrow from the talk-story tradition. getting earlier institutional recognition than alice walker and toni morrison, 1 kingston was the most prominent female ethnic writer in the 1970s and even 1980s. having opened the door for a generation of asian american writers and critics in the mainstream american literary field, kingston “has become the muse, the guardian angel” (wang, jennie, 2007: 11). by her three major prose works, maxine hong kingston has garnered an impressive collection of awards: in 1976, the woman warrior won the national book critics circle award 1 following kingston, toni morrison won the national book critics circle award for song of solomn in 1977. and after kingston received the 1980 national book award for china men, in 1983 alice walker won both the national book award and the pulitzer prize for the color purple. 2 for nonfiction, followed the next year with a national education association award and the mademoiselle magazine award. in 1978, the woman warrior won the anisfield-wolf race relations book award and then, in 1979, time rated it as one of the ten most important nonfiction works of the 1970s. on its release in 1980, china men was immediately named to the american library associations notable books list and won the national book award for nonfiction. the following years brought the american book award, nomination for the national book critics circle award and the distinction of being named runner-up for the pulitzer prize. tripmaster monkey: his fake book (1989) won the p.e.n. usa west award for fiction in its publication year and the john dos passos prize for literature in 1998, also the year in which kingston became the recipient of the fred cody lifetime achievement award presented by the bay area book reviewers association. in 1997, maxine hong kingston was awarded the national humanities medal by the president of the united states. then to be the poet and the fifth peace book were published respectively in 2002 and 2003. the woman warrior is a collection of five short stories. their sharing focus is on the construction of both individual and group identity, which is complicated by gender and ethnicity of chinese american women in orientalist america. each narrative presents mainly the situation of a woman in kingstons extended family, and as a whole, the five narratives balance the contradictions in the cultural conflicts which the girl-narrator has to handle subtly. “no name woman” opens the topic of how to live up to her mothers expectation to be a good daughter in a chinese family. kingstons mother tells a story about an aunt who lived in a village of old china and had been married to a young man on the eve of his departure for america. left lonely behind with no hope of reuniting with her husband, the aunt was pregnant by “a stranger,” thus disgraced her family and violated the community taboo of adultery. after an attack by the villagers, the aunt threw herself into the family well. like her no-name aunt, the girl narrator is also faced with a choice between individual sexual liberty (favorable in the 1960s american mainstream culture) and the preservation of her name and place in her family and ethnic community. essentially, the sensational story presents “a warning that forbids the daughter to repeat the family curse growing up in a country of strangers, by describing to her the consequence of adultery” (wang, jennie, 2007: 69). through the story of fa mu lan, “white tiger” implies that chinese tradition does provide, as an antidote to the archetypes of the “grieving asian women needing the wests rescue,” the powerful image of a woman warrior who wields a sword in battle and vanquishes an enemy army. the narrator, capable of giving birth to a son in the battlefield, now becomes a commander of an army and a comrade to her husband. “shaman” narratives the story of brave orchid, a modern woman warrior who exorcises the malevolent sitting ghost, earns a degree from a medical college and becomes a 3 well-beloved doctor before she immigrates to america to practise her roles as wife and mother. brave orchids heroism as a self-liberated wife negates the fate of the no-name woman who waited passively for her husband and drowned herself in the family well. “at the western palace” takes place in america, where brave orchids heroic spirit is defeated as she is displaced from china. moon orchid, brave orchids sister, comes to america to join her husband only to be denied for he has already married another woman. consequently, moon orchid succumbs to madness. the story deals with the displacement of authentic identity of chinese women and their cultural alienation. in the final chapter “a song for a barbarian reed pipe,” kingston celebrates the realization of a distinctive voice which allows her at last to communicate candidly with her mother. the book concludes with the rewritten and revelatory story of tsai yen, who recovers her voice as she listens to the music of barbarian flutes and is inspired to write poetry which distills into words her sadness and anger at her long separation from her motherland china. the aim of the story is to break the silence of oppression in orientalist america by finding words to express chinese american womens experience and creating a voice as a spokeswoman. 1. 2 divergence resulted from orientalist criticism the responses to the woman warrior have by no means been unambiguous. feminist critics often enthusiastically endorse the book for its explicit critiques of sexism and patriarchy in old china, whereas detractors argue that it achieves its success mainly through bashing chinese men and reproducing the mainstream cultures prejudices against asian americans. on the one hand, the woman warrior is generally acclaimed as a great feminist work; on the other hand, many chinese and chinese american scholars (such as toming, david leiwei li and zhao wenshu) argue that what the woman warrior rebels mainly is patriarchy and sexism in old china, not sexism and racism in the white mainstream. to them, the woman warrior consolidates, consciously or unconsciously, american orientalist dualism (such as civilization and democracy of modern america vs. barbarism and despotism of old china) and so, to some extent, airs white supremacy. judging from extensive and detrimental misreading of the white mainstream, all of the criticisms above seem reasonable and self-evident for, to apply indiscriminately edward saids theory, orientalism is a hegemonic discourse that “can be discussed and analyzed asa western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the orient” and, because of orientalism, “the orient was not (and is not) a free subject of thought or action” (said, 1978: 3; emphasis mine). however, we chinese critics and scholars should not always take orientalism as our major critical criterion as it is leading chinese american criticism to a dead end and making chinese american writers fall in extreme impasse. we should always learn by heart that 4 orientalism “makes sense at all depends more on the west than on the east,” and that orientalist representation relies “upon institutions, traditions, conventions, agreed-upon codes of understanding for their effects, not upon a distant and amorphous orient” (said, 1978: 22). anyway, american orientalism is a de-historical imaginary white discourse, through which the west develops the useful and discards the useless by constructing and emphasizing the “otherness” of the east. therefore, as chinese american writing has its own historical and social background, we should not always negate their legality of using china and chinese culture as the background of their writing and take their representation of china and chinese as a kind of “gaze” of the west on the east. on the contrary, we should “realize and restore the easts subjectivity and values” (zhao yifan, 2000: 16) and comprehend that chinese culture is the root of chinese american writers creation and they are legitimate to dig and present chinese culture according to their own understanding. after all, it is those chinese american writers like maxine hong kingston that bravely bear the extreme burden of american orientalism and even deconstruct it from its core to strive for more discourse space for chinese americans. in the following four chapters, the author will firstly analyze the characteristics of american orientalism and then give american orientalism in the white american literature a historical and social representation so as to further explain how heavy american orientalist burden chinese american writers bear. then through the disputable text the woman warrior, the author will show from four dimensions the bigotry of american orientalism and its extensive influence in the misreading of the woman warrior. from a historical and social perspective, chapter three will go on to explain how the text subverts american orientalist discourse through the narrative tactic of representation/deconstruction. in chapter four, the author will put forward the issue of how to transcend the influence of orientalism and use chinese values such as “oneness of nature and man” as critical standards in criticizing chinese american writing so as to give out more positive and constructive readings. chapter five is the conclusion of the thesis, which aims to point out that the woman warrior has made a strong subversion of american orientalism, created some instructive women characters for american literature and represented confidently “oneness of nature and man”one fundamental value of chinese culture, and so it is a great book. 5 chapter 2 american orientalist representation, burden and misreading 2. 1 american orientalism the orient, according to edward said, is a “european invention,” a “place of rom