1。 Introduction
1。1 Significance of the study
Maxine Hong Kingston was born in the United States who has been emphasized on her real identity, “I was born in California, Stockton, I am an American woman, and also I am a Chinese American woman。。。 ” She even named herself as “Chinese Americans on the west coast of the United States, ”, “ Americans who can speak Cantonese dialect of the four places in Guangdong ”(Kingston, 1981)。 With her special cultural backgrounds, she started to write。 In the 1970s, Maxine Hong Kingston, a new star in the American literature, rose up from unknown to well-known with her debut the Woman Warrior, which had given her high reputation in Chinese American literature。 This novel has made contribution as a Landmark in Asian American literature, and also promoted the development of the whole ethnic literature。
With her dual cultural backgrounds, Maxine Hong Kingston is familiar with Chinese ancient works。 Therefore, she focuses on the use of Chinese cultural images and writing those strong Chinese characteristics throughout her works, which creates the unique exotic feelings in her work。 However, this unique exotic feelings rises discussions among scholars。 The focus of the controversy involves the use of text, that is, how to understand the Chinese traditional culture and the text in Maxine Hong Kingston’s works, how to figure out whether the use of Chinese traditional culture is for the traditional heritage, or it is cultural alienation that the author takes advantage to map the Chinese American women's real life status nowadays。文献综述
1。2 Literature Review
Since the publication of The Woman Warrior, discussion of the female image in this wonderful work has caused great curiosity among the domestic public, and many scholars pay great attention to interpret the novel from multi-directions。 There are several aspects to have the novel interpreted。 Gender politics in The Woman Warrior from the perspective of the narrative theory。 Zhao Wenqiong agrees with that by using this narrative theory, it can be easy to let readers mistakenly think that the story is an autobiography, but also to accept the authority of first person narrative, which can strengthen the female discourse power, and capture the female consciousness to resist suppression from the patriarchy society ( Zhao, 2012: 103)。 In the chapter “White Tigers", the author used "I", the first person narrative, to tell children in the United States have loose imagination on the story of China's heroine Mulan legend。 Many Chinese critics have shown great interest in exploring woman's living situation from feminism in the novel。 Bao Wei has analyzed the feminist thought from three aspects: the awakening of female consciousness, the demand of Chinese women and cultural integration。 Comparing the attached "No Name Woman" and self-reliance "Mulan", he concludes that woman is not a male accessory, but an independent human who has completely female consciousness, and is being equal to the male(Bao, 2012)。 Zhu Dan thinks that under the oppression of the patriarchy, womanhood has been in silence and even the silence increases。 However, the awakening of women's awareness in the 20th century encourage women to have courage to struggle against and break the silence, seek independence and self-identity, pursue liberation of women right, in order to resist the oppression of the patriarchy society(Zhu, 2013)。 As a critic comments on her and her novel, Liu comments that Maxine Hong Kingston rewrites Chinese ancient myths, and she intends to use the well-known heroine Mulan to have the cross-cultural transplantation and deformation in Chinese ancient story, to show the contemporary women's image who gain the typical American characteristics pursue the realization of self-value。 The adaption of Mulan legend is the product of cultural exchange, which is the inevitable result of cultural expansion(Liu, 2008:93)。