An Analysis Of The Woman Warrior From The Perspective Of Post-colonialism

The Woman Warrior won the glory of the year’s National Book Critic’s Circle Award for Books in 1976. She has made a marvelous contribution to the Chinese American literature as a writer. Kingston’s first novel The Woman Warrior describes the marginal life of Chinese American female and their growing-up experiences and shows a comprehensive picture of Chinese American people’s life in the American society.The novel mainly discusses women’s growth process by describing different stories told by the narrator. Kingston discusses women’s growth experience from a totally fresh view. Women gained personal freedom by obtaining financial independence, and realizing their self-surpass in psychology, breaking mental bondage. By writing this novel, the author talks about Chinese American females who live in a discriminative environment. With the theory of post-colonialism, the novel contains stories of six women:their growth and identification recognition. The Chinese American female painstakingly looks for value and identification and becomes a self-focusing female with modern ideology despite gender and racial discrimination. Finally, the woman puts forward a staunch and resolute personality, and in life turns into a true warrior.The thesis consists of an introduction, five chapters and a conclusion. The introduction is composed of research background, objectives and significance of the study, data collection and organization of this research. It also presents a brief review on The Woman Warrior as well as Maxine Hong Kingston’s Life Experience and Major Literary Works. Chapter One analyzes the theory of Post-colonialism. This chapter covers both theories and their reflection in The Woman Warrior. Chapter Two discusses Stereotype in The Woman Warrior with emphasis on characteristic stereotype in the novel and major causes of the stereotype. Chapter Three copes with aphasia in The Woman Warrior. In Chapter Four, the thesis analyzes women’s consciousness of their identities. And the fifth chapter is resistance of three different characters. The last part is the conclusion of the whole thesis, in which the major research findings, limitations, implications, and suggestions for further study are provided.