Image Of Father In Li-Young Lee's Poetry

Li-Young Lee is a famous contemporary Chinese American poet.Lee's works are unique and full of tension because of his illustrious family background,miserable exiles,western and Chinese education.Lee's father has influenced him greatly and becomes a core figure in his poems.For Li-Young Lee,father is not only the person in real life,but also a sign of culture,model and order.It is an important way to understand Lee's poems by analyzing the image of father,carrying deep meaning.This thesis focuses on the image of father in Lee's poems,including its great influence on Lee's creating career and its potential purpose for Lee.By close reading,this thesis aims to interpret the image of father in Lee's poems.There are three parts: introduction,body and conclusion.The first part is introduction,which presents Li-Young Lee's life and works briefly.In addition,it also classifies the research condition of Lee's poems at home and abroad.The first chapter focuses on analyzing the variable,vivid,and complicated image of father in order to explore their subtle and ambivalent relationship and examine its origin of patriarchal culture.At the same time,this part declares depicting the image of father is a review of real experience as well as a kind of imaginary.So to describe father is to introspect self.The second chapter detailedly discusses the differences between Li-young Lee and his clergyman father in their beliefs.Lee criticizes his father's piety and enthusiasm,abandons a grand narrative that ignores individual values,while chooses poetry that respects the individual experience.However,his father's belief still has an impact on Lee's writing,manifest such as: his desire for transcendence and creative use of Christian elementsChapter three interprets Li-young Lee's writing of his father's image from the perspective of self and identity.As a member of ethnics,Lee suffers from identity crisis.The depicting of the image of father reflects his own attitude.On the one hand,Li-young Lee portrays a powerful and excellent father to against racial prejudice and stereotypes.On the other hand,Lee expresses his cultural identity through his relation with his father.Based on the image of father with blood,memory and culture,Lee tries to establish a new self in the wider world.Conclusion part reiterates the views of the text and gives Lee's poems an overall evaluation.This thesis discusses the image of father and its significance from three levels,which has positive influence on further study Lee's poems.