从女性主义视角解读《女勇士》中的食物意象商务英语专业.docx

摘 要 在20世纪60年代的民权以及女性主义运动的推动下，汤亭亭打破沉默，用虚构的、夸张的和讽刺的笔触为我们展现了华裔女性被社会边缘化的生活画面。本文将从女性主义视角解读《女勇士》中的食物意象。具体来讲，就是通过母亲为女儿准备的带着恐怖、怪异、残忍色彩的食物，隐喻华裔女性在男性主义和种族主义中寻求“自我”身份的步履维艰。作者直接批判和讽刺中国迂腐的“男尊女卑”思想和白人社会的种族歧视，并积极寻求自我身份认同以及努力成长为女勇士。 这篇论文由六部分组成。 第一部分，简要介绍作者汤亭亭和她的巨著之一《女勇士》，浅析食物与女性、文化和身份的关系。 第二部分，阐述女性主义、种族歧视以及学者已有的研究。 第三部分，分析食物如何体现母女矛盾心理，包含矛盾的显现、激化以及调和。 第四部分，阐述对“中式胃口”的抵抗和接受对应对本民族的文化的憎恨和认同心理。 第五部分，阐述女勇士成长之路，包括提升自我意识、寻求自我身份及民族身份认同。 第六部分，总结全文。 关键词：食物意象; 华裔美国人; 女性主义; 种族歧视; 自我身份认同 The Analysis of Food Images in The Woman Warrior from the Perspective of Feminism 1. Introduction The Chinese American literature arises and reaches its supreme prosperity in 1960s to 1990s. With the publication of The Woman Warrior written by Maxine Hong Kingston in 1976, Chinese American literature came to its sparkling stage. The novel won the National Book Critics Award for the best non-fiction of that year and was well-received in American academic mainstreams. In The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston creates a strikingly vivid and picturesque panorama of Chinese life in America. It made the first significant impact of Chinese American consciousness, and paved the way for young writers of the next decade to prove conclusively that the Chinese America voice had a powerful resonance far beyond Chinatown. 1.1 Introduction of Maxine Hong Kingston Maxine Hong Kingston (Chinese name: Tang Tingting), was born in Stockton, California, in 1940. She was the third of eight children to the first-generation Chinese immigrants, Tom and Ying Lan Hong. He was a laundry worker and gambling house owner and she was a practitioner of medicine. Kingston is a Chinese American author and Professor Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley. Kingston has published such works as The Woman Warrior (1976), China Men(1980), Tripmaster Monkey (1989), The Fifth Book of Peace (2004), and Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace (2006). Awards for her great contributions to Chinese American Literature including: the National Book Critics Circle Award, National Book Award, National Humanities Medal as well as National Medal of Arts. The lack of life material doesn’t mean the poverty of spirit. Instead, children’s pabulum for mind is rich. Tom is busy making a living, thus children are out of his discipline. After all he is an excellent intellectual of traditional Chinese literature, exerting profound influence on Kingston. When it comes to Ying Lan Hong, she is a Jack of all Trades, especially in telling Chinese folk tales: The goddess mending the sky, Jingwei reclamation, the Foolish Old Man removing the mountain, Mulan the Army, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio... She could tell the story fluently at any time. Although young Kingston told the difference between the kindness and evil, the beauty and the ugliness from the perspective of an American, soon she was deeply impressed by the romance characters and the vivid description of legends. It was at this time that Kingston brought up a keen interest in literature. In her long career, her writings reflect the cultural experiences of the Asian immigrant community in America and struggle against sexual and racial discrimination. 1.2 Introduction of The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston created a worldwide sensation with her 1976 work The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts and showed up as one of the leading contemporary Chinese-American writers. While labeled as nonfiction, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts featured a blending of traditional memoir and myth, and invoked a similar feeling of magical realism. The book won the national book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction in 1976. The Woman Warrior is divided into five interconnection chapters and each one narrates one woman character. Chapter One, titled No Name Woman, tells the narrator’s alleged aunt. A young woman who gets pregnant long after her husband has emigrated to the United States is convicted of adultery, which humiliating the entire family. Thus the whole family never speak of her even denies her existence. The night when she gives birth to a baby girl, villagers violently assault her family’s house, punishing her unacceptable deed. Hailstones of abuse are pelting her. With enormous shame, she takes the baby and jumps into the well, both drowned. The narrator retells the story and uses her own experience with Chinese tradition and culture to transit the No Name Woman from a criminal to a victim. Chapter Two, titled White Tigers, recounting a talk-story of an imaginary woman warrior-Fa Mulan. Kingston tells the story in “I”, morphing into Fa Mulan. “I” has been trained at the mountain top for fifteen years by a couple of god-like elders. Powerful and strong enough, “I” return to her village and kill the bullies with her quick swordsmanship. Achieving her battle, she resumes her duties as a wife, and a mother as well. Kingston reverts to her life in America, which is “disappointed” (Kingston 45) comparing