Da Guan：Quest For Hattie Kong’s Philosophy Of Life In World And Town

Gish Jen’s works focus on the representation of Chinese Americans. Through her literary works, she creates a series of Chinese American characters whose Chinese cultural values are active in both solving their social problems and forming their identity. Nonetheless, researches on these Chinese cultural values are relatively inadequate in studying her works. In fact, Chinese cultural values impose great effect on these ethnic Americans, particularly exemplified in her latest novel World and Town.Taking Chinese philosophy of da guan as a key concept, this thesis analyzes Gish Jen’s World and Town, in an attempt to tease out its protagonist Hattie Kong’s life philosophy. To do so, this thesis first theorizes the concept of "da guan" in light of Sartre’s conception of freedom and existence. The core ideas of da guan are then represented by the words of "transcendence", "disinterestedness" and "change". These words then guide the following analysis of Hattie’s re-structuring of self and other, re-location of Chinese culture and American culture, and her new way of revealing the world. Hattie strives to keep a dynamic balance between Chinese culture and American culture as she re-defines self and other on the basis of a da guan perspective, which also guides her to transcendentally observe life and death, leading her to inner peace that she longs for. Important images are applied to illustrate the developing of Hattie’s interpersonal relation and the change of her way in observing the world. Finally, with her effort of transcending the limitation of vision and discarding bias, with her intelligence in encountering changes of the world, Hattie accomplishes her chief job in the town, reconstituting her life. As the examination of da guan as a strategy of juxtaposing contradictory elements embedding on Chinese Americans shows, Gish Jen further develops her theory about culture and identity of Chinese Americans from the alternative choice to the coexistence of self and other, which in turn forms a new concept of ethnic identity.