Construction Of Women’s Subjectivity And Identity In Frank Chin’s Gunga Din Highway From The Perspective Of Narratoiogy

Frank Chin is a famous contemporary Chinese American literary writer,dramatist,critic,anthologist and the most influential and controversial figure in the history of Chinese American literature.He is acclaimed as "the pioneer of Asian American literature".Gunga Din Highway;is one of his full-length novels published in 1994.It shows Frank Chin’^consideration of the subjectivity and identity of Chinese Americans.There are many comments and researches on the writer,the novel and mostly on Chinese American male characters,yet fewer studies are on Chinese American female characters,and even fewer on female characters from the perspective of narratology.Many scholars and critics believe that the roles of Chinese American female characters are downplayed,or they are silent or lose their voice in his works.The study analyzes the subjectivity and identity of two Chinese American females,Hyacinth and Pandora toy from the perspective of narratology.It explores their female subjectivity,ethnic subjectivity and cultural identity from the perspectives of focalization(internal focalization),narrative discourse(indirect speech,free indirect speech,direct speech and free direct speech)so as to reveal the hidden voice of the implied author-showing in contrast the different subjectivities and identities in Hyacinth and Pandora toy.Hyacinth loses female subjectivity but possesses ethnic subjectivity and she rejects assimilation,while Pandora shows herself just to be the other way round.Through the analysis,it demonstrates the writer’s effort to subvert the prejudiced stereotype of Chinese American females.This thesis aims to provide a new perspective of the work and it hopes to gain an in-depth understanding of females in Frank Chin’s work.