Breaking The Silence: Interpreting The Woman Warrior And The Joy Luck

In the history of Chinese American literature, Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan are two most prominent representatives. In America, female Chinese were constrained from voicing freely due to the double discriminations imposed by the Caucasian-centralism society and the Chinese traditional ideology. Living in the dual cultural background with mingled cultures of Chinese and American origin, from their childhood Kingston and Tan were confused with their identities, particularly their identities as Chinese women. In order to escape from the predicament of identity and break the silence, they dedicated to writing. Through their masterpieces-The Woman Warrior and The Joy Luck Club, they finally accomplished their identity search and articulated loudly as Chinese American women. In this thesis, not only the process of the development in Chinese American literature, and the pilgrim of identity search by Kingston and Tan will be included, but also the distinct writing strategies of their warmly welcomed masterpieces will be illustrated.