Struggling For Identity

Amy Tan plays an important role on introducing Chinese culture to the American literature circle. With her five famous and popular novels, The Joy Luck Club (1989), The Kitchen God's Wife (1991), The Hundred Secret Senses (1995), The Bonesetter's Daughter (2001) and Saving Fish From Drowning (2005), she sets a good example on how to treat Chinese and American culture as a Chinese American and stirs up concern from the American mainstream. Amy Tan is regarded as one of the most influential Chinese American writers in the 20th American literature and gains a high acclaim from many scholars and readers.This paper will focus on the changing sisterhood which displays the integration between Chinese culture and American culture. The aim is to interpret the communication between Chinese and American culture as well as the search for identity through the sisters changing opinions on the ghost in Amy Tan's third novel The Hundred Secret Senses. First, it gives a short introduction on the Chinese American literature and makes a clear definition in this paper. Then it clarifies the ghost on a literal level which relates Chinese culture traits and concentrates on the ghost serving as a bridge between Chinese and American culture. Next, though interpreting culture meaning on the ghost, it will explore the changing sisterhood, i.e. a stranger and other, a listener and half-other, a talker and half-self, a life partner vs. a new self. It will show a new image of Olivia. Finally, the paper employs Homi Bhabha's Third Space and hybridity to analyze the two main characters Kwan and Olivia. Kwan becomes the translator to build a bridge connecting with Chinese culture and American culture. Olivia strives to build a third space for herself; a land mixed the Chinese and American culture, and builds a hybrid identity. To Amy Tan, The Hundred Secret Senses is a journey to search an efficient road forming herself. It is a trial to Amy Tan and even to the Chinese American.