Study Of Gender And Racial Performativity In The Woman Warrior And Mona In The Promised Land

Race and gender are the two unceasing issues discussed in the field of ethnic literature, especially the gender an d racial identity of Chinese Am erican women. Judith Butler’s Theory of Gender Perf ormativity deconstructs the tradition al boundaries of both gender and sex. According to Butler, gender is fluid and can be performed. Since race shares pl enty of similarities with gender, in some degree, race is gendered and gender is ra cialized. Thus it is saf e for us to say race is also performative and we may extend gender perfor mativity to racial performativity. This thesis is aimed to analyze the gender pe rformativity in Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior to reveal Chinese American women’s identity dilemma as well as the racial performativity in Gish Gen’s Mona in the Promised land to reveal the diverse identity as a free performance under m ulticulturalism in order to reveal the intersection of race and gende r during Chinese Am erican men and women’s identity formation.Five chapters are included in this paper. Chapter One briefly introduces the history and literary writings of Chinese American women, the background of the two authors and novels as w ell as the theory of gender and racial perform ativity used in the analysis of the two novels.Chapter Two mainly deals with the gender performativity of the Chines e American women in the novel The W oman Warrior. Most of the Chinese American women perform the patriarchal gender stereo type of femininity in China and racial stereotypes under the Western Orientalist discourse in American. Moreover, Kingston also illustrates the women who also perfor m masculinities as a resistan ce to gender stereotypes such as Mu lan and Brave Orch id. It is poss ible for Chinese Am erican women to deconstruct the gender binary opposition that is given by patriarchal society through voluntary gender performativity.Chapter Three analy zes the racial pe rformativity in M ona in the Prom ised Land. Under American Multiculturalism, racial identity can be regarded as a matter of voluntary performativity. Mona, Mona’s family and Mona’s peer’s successful shift between different racial and cultu ral identities indicate the fluidity of race similar to gender. It is possible for the ethnic minorities to break down the racial boundary given by Western Orientalism discourse through voluntary racial performativity.Chapter Four mainly pays attention to the delicate re lationship between race and gender, racial formation and gender fo rmation, gender performativity and racial performativity in the two novels. The identi ty formation of Chinese Am erican men and women are intertwined with the issues of gender, race, cultu re, history, etc. Chinese American men should stand together with Chinese American women to fight against sexism and racism in order to ach ieve the equality in the true sense. Chapter Five is conclusion.