Table Of ContentIllinois State University
ISU ReD: Research and eData
Teses and Dissertations
9-23-2015
Living Between Dialectics: A Bakhtinian and
Lacanian Reading of Jade Snow Wong's Fifh
Chinese Daughter and Maxine Hong Kingston's
Te Woman Warrior
XiaoJun Luo
Illinois State University,
LIVING BETWEEN DIALECTICS: A BAKHTINIAN AND LACANIAN READING
OF JADE SNOW WONG’S FIFTH CHINESE DAUGHTER AND
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON’S THE WOMAN WARRIOR
XiaoJun Luo
156 Pages
This dissertation creates a dialogic web encompassing the sociocultural and
psychological aspects of Jade Snow Wong’s and Maxine Hong Kingston’s
autobiographies Fifth Chinese Daughter and The Woman Warrior. The American
mainstream society and Chinese patriarchal community have conceived insurmountable
ethnic and gender differences that are inherent in Wong’s and Kingston’s growing-up
environment. The dissertation argues that how the two authors perceive the way of how
these differences have been conceived is central to our understanding of their
representations of ethnic female consciousness when they are writing as both subjects and
writers. The dissertation notes that Wong’s and Kingston’s texts are like a mirror
reflecting how they are informed by the principal social ideologies such as Orientalism,
the American dream, and the patriarchal definition of womanhood.
The dissertation goes on to argue that the literary strategies Wong and Kingston have
adopted in their texts function to represent the difference of the protagonist’s world
longtime suppressed by dominant social values, and the mixture of different cultural and
literary elements in the text metaphorically manifest the dialogic nature of American
ethnic literature and culture. The dissertation contends that all these strategies have
political implications because they are used to challenge the conventional unitary literary
language.
KEYWORDS: Dialogism, Mirror Theory, The Symbolic, The Semiotic, Difference, The
Other
LIVING BETWEEN DIALECTICS: A BAKHTINIAN AND LACANIAN READING
OF JADE SNOW WONG’S FIFTH CHINESE DAUGHTER AND
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON’S THE WOMAN WARRIOR
XIAOJUN LUO
A Dissertation Submitted in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of English
ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY
2015
© 2015 XiaoJun Luo
LIVING BETWEEN DIALECTICS: A BAKHTINIAN AND LACANIAN READING
OF JADE SNOW WONG’S FIFTH CHINESE DAUGHTER AND
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON’S THE WOMAN WARRIOR
XIAOJUN LUO
COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Ricardo Cortez Cruz, Chair
Roberta Seelinger Trites
Janice Neuleib
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Without the help of the members of my committee, I could not have written this
dissertation. I would like to thank Professor Cruz for suffering the first drafts and helping
me to shape them, and for his invaluable guidance and extraordinary generosity during
the writing of this dissertation; Dr. Trites for her sound editing advice that helped me
think through my ideas more clearly, and for her positive attitude and enthusiastic
response to my drafts that greatly encouraged me along the way; and Dr. Neuleib for her
insightful comments that often challenged me to think beyond literary studies.
Without the support and love of my husband Zhang Yi, I could not have
completed this work. I thank him for having taken over many household and babysitting
tasks so that I could write. I also thank him for his technical assistance with the internet
connection and the formatting of this manuscript.
I wish to dedicate this dissertation to my son, XiaoBao: the sweetness of his
conception and the delight of his company over the last few months have filled my life
with sunshine. I could not have completed this journey without him.
X. J. L.
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CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i
CONTENTS ii
CHAPTER
I. POLITICIZED AND HISTORICIZED CHINESE-
AMERICAN FEMALE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1
II. A BAKHTINIAN AND LACANIAN PERSPECTIVE
ON ETHNIC FEMALE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 25
III. EXISTENTIAL AMBIVALENCE 48
IV. A WAY TO TALK BACK 73
V. TALKING TO LEARN 118
REFERENCES 148
ii
CHAPTER I
POLITICIZED AND HISTORICIZED CHINESE-AMERICAN
FEMALE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Maxine Hong Kingston once mentioned Asian-American writer Jade Snow
Wong’s influence on her in an interview, “I’m not sure that I got help from former
generation of Chinese-American writers except for Jade Snow Wong, actually her book
was the only available one.” It is this remark that has sparked many scholars’ interest in
these two Asian-American women writers, and their autobiographies are often juxtaposed
with each other to be discussed from various perspectives. In looking at these two books,
it’s easy to find ourselves very much identifying with Chinese-American writer Ha Jin’s
sense of the challenge facing ethnic women writers: when a writer decides to start her
career, she must “justify [her] endeavor” by asking herself, “To whom, as whom, and in
whose interest does [s]he write” (3). The writer’s subject matter, identity, and purpose are
often issues open for attack, and in some particular circumstances, they form the criteria
to judge her works. Back in Wong and Kingston’s eras, when it was especially so that
culture and literature were dominated by homogeneity and Asian-American literature was
denied its access to the national canon, the consideration of these questions must have
greatly impacted their writing process and shaped what their works should be like.
On the other hand, when Chinese-American writers choose to write about
themselves, they are doing something against the Chinese-American cultural and literary
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traditions that rarely encourages individuality. How to “rightly” represent a history of
racial and gender discriminations as well as Chinese-American culture is also a risky
task, demanding much courage and discretion. Autobiography seems to permit the author
the artistic autonomy to present his or her American experience and development;
however, the author’s ethnic identity complicates his or her writing situation, and it is
even more so for a woman writer. Ethnic female autobiographers’ writing can become
more strategic after their desire to freely express themselves is subdued or repressed by
their awareness of their double marginal social status. The collectivistic, patriarchal
Chinese community and the exclusive American mainstream society have led to this
particular reflection on the difficulties that ethnic female autobiographers have
encountered and the subsequent attempt here to disassemble racist and sexist stereotypes
they have had to confront. These factors have undoubtedly dictated their writing and thus
are two primary rhetoric concerns in their writing process. This reflection also makes me
interested in the social aspects of Wong’s and Kingston’s individual identities and their
constant negotiation as writers with different cultural norms.
My dissertation considers ethnic female autobiography as a social as well as
psychological site for ethnic women to claim America. My goal is to establish an
interactive relationship between the writers, their social contexts and their works by
examining the particular fashions they use to present themselves, and exploring the
reasons and motives for doing so. To be more specific, I am seeking to get us to examine
how particular social circumstances have motivated their urgency to find a way to best
articulate their voices and obtain heterogeneous readership.
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