An Analysis Of Resistant Writing In Shawn Wong’s Novels

As a pioneer of Chinese American literature,Shawn Wong has made certain contributions to promote the development of Chinese American literature.Shawn Wong’s first novel,Homebase,was published in 1979.This novel depicts the story of how four generations of Chinese Americans struggle and settle down in the United States,recuperating the suppressed history of Chinese Americans.Wong’s second novel,American Knees,was published in 1995.This novel centers around the love stories of one Chinese American man with various women.Meanwhile,the elder generation of Chinese Americans retell the silenced history of Chinese Americans.So far,domestic and foreign studies on these two novels mainly focus on the theme of identity.Thus,taking Shawn Wong’s two fictions as the research object,this thesis analyzes the resistant writing in the texts based on Michel Foucault’s historical views,his notion of counter-memory and the method of close reading.Foucault argued that history,which is seen as truth,actually conceals numerous errors and is full of discontinuities.The erasure of early Chinese American history is evidence of the discontinuity in American history.Both novels recount the suppressed history of early Chinese Americans.Firstly,the thesis explores the absent or distorted narratives about Chinese Americans in American Mainstream society.The history of early Chinese Americans is silenced by American history.The distorted images of Chinese American males prevail in American culture.Next,this thesis explores how Wong applies various strategies of counter-memory to write effective history,that is,Chinese American history of building the Central Pacific Railroad and being persecuted during anti-Chinese sentiment,which opposes American history given as continuity.Then,the thesis analyzes how Wong reconstructs the heroic and masculine images of Chinese American males by retelling the early Chinese American history and Chinese American descendants’ life experience in America.The reconstruction of the heroic and masculine images of Chinese American males is to resist the distorted Chinese American male stereotypes in mainstream American culture.Finally,this thesis concludes that Shawn Wong’s resistant writing aims at speaking for Chinese Americans and revealing the distortion of Chinese American history and Chinese American male images in American mainstream discourse.The reconstruction of Chinese American history and Chinese American male images is conducive for Chinese Americans to resist American hegemonic discourse and strive for equal rights.This thesis is divided into four chapters.The first chapter is concerned with the introduction to Shawn Wong and his two novels,literature review on Homebase and American Knees,and the introduction to Michel Foucault’s historical views and his notion of counter-memory.The second chapter centers around the briefing on early Chinese Americans,the obliteration of early Chinese American history,the distorted Chinese American male images in American mainstream culture,and cultural causes for Chinese Americans being victims.The third chapter analyzes the retelling of early Chinese American history.The fourth chapter deals with the reconstruction of heroic and masculine images of Chinese American males.