An Analysis Of Third Space In Frank Chin’s Donald Duk

As a controversial writer in Chinese American critic circles,Frank Chin is known by this world for his talent on writing.As his fi rst novel,Donald Duk was praised by the Philadelphia Inquirer as “a sm all masterpiece” upon its issu e,which is also considered as the beginning of Frank Chin’s writing idea,i.e.”Asian Sensibility”.This novel presents the great cont ribution of early Chinese Am erican immigrants to the construction of west railroad in north Am erican and provides the research potential,here represented by Donald Duk,by applying the juxtaposition of dream and reality and ingenious using the space and time.The researches about Donald Duk focus on bildungsrom an,identity seeking,novel’s influence and comparative studies etc,which are m ainly from the perspective of post-modernism or post-colonialism.This thesis tr ies to apply the Third Space theory of Edward Soja as the breaking point to probe into the fiction and inspects the three levels of space: the geographical space reflected by the wes t railroad in American and Chinatown in San Francisco;the discourse space indicated by language;and the hybrid cultural space by K wan Kung a nd Spring Festival.In this way,this thesis dissects the process of reconstructi on of Chinese American male image and the culture mindset.This thesis also excavates the important role of hidden history of early Chinese American immigrants for many Chinese American writers,and provides with possibility for research on literature works with the Third Space theory in a dif ferent viewpoint,and helps readers better understand the struggle of Chinese Am ericans when they try to f ind their own cultur al identity amid the “Third Spac e” between American mainstream society and Chinese traditional culture.