On Aphasia Of The Oriental Women In Tess Gerritsen’s Novels

Tess Gerritsen is known as “The Medical Suspense Queen”, a dazzling nova in contemporary Chinese female literature. The Surgeon, Vanish, and Harvest are three representative and influential works of her.“Aphasia” originally refers to a linguistic phenomenon that someone has language barriers. Based on the Post-colonial Feminism, Spivak points out that the non-western and non-white women are deprived of power of discourse under the control of the patriarchy and imperial rules. The oriental women in Chinese American women writers stay state of aphasia because of its subordinate statuses.The thesis aims to explore different forms of power aphasia and identity aphasia of the oriental women in medical suspense novels, to expose that the oriental women in Chinese American women literature are facing the predicaments of power vacuum, as well as of blurred identity. Meanwhile, it tries to probe into the real reason and solutions of aphasia among the oriental women. It mainly analyzes aphasia of power referring to loss of power and women materialization and aphasia of identity namely vague race identity and gender identity, as well as the process from aphasia to establish resisting discourse.It’s found out that all these three novels reveal the aphasia status of the oriental women. From multinational groups to organ transplant hospitals to the police offices, even to families, they are all representatives of power manipulated by patriarchy emperor. Whether women doctors, or policewomen, or the orient young girls, they are involved in power vacuum and erased identity. Moreover, not only are they in aphasia of discourse, but in aphasia of power and identity. The oriental women in Chinese American women literature choose to keep silence, to escape, to endure under double oppression of patriarchy and imperialism. The choice of no speaking reflects their rejection and resistance. From the initial aphasia to counter-discourse, they succeed from no speaking to resisting, from the weak to the strong in the end.