| Gish Jen(1955—),the contemporay Chinese American Writer,was born in New York,America.She was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009.The literary critic and feminist theorist Elaine Showalter described Jen in The Guardian as one of the eight greatest female American writers,together with Tony Morrison,the Nobel Prize winner in literature,and Joyce Carol Oates,the National Book Award winner and the Nobel Prize nominee in literature.Although becoming well-known in the 1990s,Gish Jen has been awarded a series of literary prizes and honors,due to her deep insight into the American social history and reality,the sagacious viewpoints and humorous narrative techniques of her works.In her fictions,Gish Jen shows her wide concern about the American society,focusing on ethics,the consumer society,gender,trauma,ethnicity and religion.Gish Jen displays the existential and ethical predicaments of the American ethnic immigrants,especially the Chinese American immigrants,and puts forth her own creative and flexible prospects of ethical reconstruction.This dissertation consists of five parts as follows:The introduction part generalizes Gish Jen’s life story and literary achievements.A literature review analyzes the current status of research on Gish Jen’s works at home and abraod.Based on the review,the research questions,stragedies and methodology of this dissertation are put forth.The first chapter probes into the existential predicaments of Chinese American males and females in the consumer society,and into the reconstruction of gender ethics through intersubjectivity.Firstly,this dissertation focuses on the construction of American identity and self-alienation of Chinese American males.Symbolic consumption,one of the significant characteristics of the consumer society,usually constructs the consumer’s social identity by means of symbols.In the novel Typical American,the Chinese American male immigrants try to establish their American identities and seek the American Dream via a series of consumptive symbols.However,with the lack of the essence,money worship and hedonism is in vogue in the consumer society,the American Dream is doomed to be disillusioned.The value system of the consumer society brings about the dual collapses of the Protestant ethics and the Confucian ethics,and America turns into "a wilderness of freedom".As for Chinese American females,the patriarchy and the consumer society conspire together,turning them into the desired objects,leading to their lack of subjectivity and existential predicaments.The author displays the images of a group of Chinese American female intellectuals,who transform from dependence into independence,breaking the silence and straggling against the gender inequality.The dissertation continues to expound on the subversion of the "gender stereotype" towards Chinese Americans by the white-dominated culture in America,on the construction of subjectivity of Chinese American males and females,and on the reconstruction of gender ethics between Chinese American males and females through gender equality and dialogues.The second chapter focuses on the traumatic memories triggered by wars,violences,terrors,and racial discrimination and predjudice,etc.,pays attention to the existential and ethical predicaments resulting from these memories,and attempts to reconstruct ethics of family and nation.In Gish Jen’s novel World and Town,the Cambodian Chinese Americans are traumatized by the memories during the Cambodian Khmer Rouge genocide before they immigrated to America.They suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder(PTSD),which brings about displacement of husband-wife relationship.Besides,intergenerational transmission of trauma results from lack of paternal love,making the adolescent offspring of the survivors unable to complete the establishment of self-identity,and contributing to the increase of juvenile delinquency.Secondly,in the novels Love Wife,Typical American and Mona in the Promised Land,Gish Jen depicts traumatic memories caused by racial discrimination and prejudice,and ethical predicaments between different ethnic groups.Because of their traumatic memories,the Chinese immigrants try every means to prevent their offspring from getting married with the whites,making exogamy unblessed.In the new era,racial prejudice takes on new patterns----ethnic groups discriminate against each other because of racial differences,and interracial marriage results in identity confusion.Finally,in her novels,Gish Jen puts forth free switch of identity,which believes that identity is the consequence of free chioce,and ethnic teenagers can establish their identity according to it.Interethnic groups reconstruct the ethics of family and nation through redemption of love and racial integration.The third chapter explores the existential predicaments caused by religious fundamentalism and reestablishment of religious ethics in Gish Jen’s novels.Religion is the background color of American cuture.The issues triggered by religious beliefs are always the chronic social malady in multi-ethnic,multi-cultural and multi-religious American society.Religion is also one of the main factors of the frequent incidences of violence and terrorism in recent years.Gish Jen employs religion as one of the themes of her novels,concerning almost all the world main religious beliefs.In her novel World and Town,Gish Jen focuses on religious problems in American society aroused by multi-religious beliefs,just as her other works paying attention to significant social issues.The novel displays ethical transgression towards family and community because of religious bigotry caused by fundamentalism.The author puts forth her anticipation of reconstructing family and community ethics through dialogues and sub-dialogues.According to the viewpoint of the world religious circles,it’s essential to reestablish religious ethics through dialogues among different religious beliefs.The conclusion part synthesizes this dissertation,putting forth that the ethical goal of Gish Jen’s fictions is to construct "an ideal society" by means of equality,integration and dialogue,with multiple symbiosis and hamonious coexistence of different genders,ethnicities,cultures and religions. |
