Fracture,Interference,and Imbalance

As a meeting place of the eastern and western cultures,Chinatowns are usually presented as the backdrop in Chinese American literature.Louis Chu’s Eat a Bowl of Tea portrays the "bachelor society" in New York Chinatown in the 1940s.After the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943,New York Chinatown has gone through various changes.This thesis analyzes the urban space in New York Chinatown through the perspective of Robert T.Tally’s theory of literary cartography.This theory helps the reader make sense of the profound meanings of the urban space.The writer records the dynamic trajectories of the fictional characters while illustrating the static architecture in the urban space.Apart from the tangible buildings,characters’daily experiences and perception also map the spatiality of the cityIn Eat a Bowl of Tea,the urban space in New York Chinatown is fractured and unstable.Meanwhile,the gender space is imbalanced.The thesis introduces New York Chinatown,the author Louis Chu and his Eat a Bowl of Tea.It also gives a review of the related studies at home and abroad and explains the theory of literary cartography.The first chapter discusses the fractured space of New York Chinatown.Due to the ideological differences between the old and the young generations,they were growing distant from each other.Some bachelors were leaving New York Chinatown and the bodily dysfunctions also imply the dysfunctional society in New York Chinatown.The second chapter analyzes the ambiguous border between the public urban space and the private sphere in New York Chinatown.The clan organizations’interference with characters’private matters,the residents’consumption of private matters in communal places,and the inharmonious interpersonal relationships at home render the private sphere unstable.The third chapter proposes that the gender space is imbalanced in New York Chinatown.Women’s mobility was restricted while men were able to move more freely.Meanwhile,women showed defiance against the patriarchal system in the limited sphere.