Chinese Culture as the Other: An Orientalist Study of Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior

Abstract

The present dissertation aspires to undertake the orientalist study of Kingston's novel The Woman Warrior. This study examines the negative images, which are used to define the Chinese culture. Moreover, this study proves that all these images are stereotyped images constructed by the west. All these images portray the Chinese culture as poor, barbaric, superstitious and exotic. In this manner, the Chinese culture emerges as the ‘other’ to the main stream American culture.