Maternal Images And Cultural Identity In Marilyn Chin’s Poetry

The contemporary Chinese-American poet Marilyn Chin has published five poetry collections so far.A search for positioning in society runs through her writing career,which has been focusing on connections to three types of maternal images,namely her motherland,her birth mother and her literary mothers.Although there have been studies on identification in her poetry,the three maternal images and their complex relations with the poet’s positions in America merit more systematic researches.Based on the global background of mobility and difference,the cultural studies critic Stuart Hall and the Asian-American scholar Lisa Lowe put forward successively cultural identity theories for ethnic minorities,arguing cultural identities have no essence,but are about positioning under a continuous interplay of powers.Interdisciplinary perspectives will be adopted to write the thesis,with Stuart Hall’s and Lisa Lowe’s cultural identity theories as theoretical foundations and maternal theory as supporting ideas.Thematic implications and language art of the selected poems will be carefully studied to explore connections to three types of maternal images through poetry.The poet traces cultural heritage of her motherland,listens to her mother’s life stories and evokes sisterhood with her literary mothers.On the one hand,it reveals multi-dimensional differences including cultural conflicts,racial prejudice,gender inequality and generational conflicts.On the other hand,by rebuilding connections to three types of maternal images,discontinuity and detachment caused by differences could be removed in order to help ethnic minorities establish multiple positions in society and integrate into foreign life.The three types of maternal images function as junctures and boundaries in exploring continuously produced cultural identities in migration.Moreover,highlighting significance of motherland,birth mother and literary mothers could provide cross-border visions for ethnic minorities,and provide a maternal perspective on investigating motifs of resistance and survival in cross-cultural writings.