AMY TAN’S „THE VALLEY OF AMAZEMENT”: POSTMODERN SAGA ON TRANSGRESSIVE AMERICAN CHINESENESS
AMY TAN’S „THE VALLEY OF AMAZEMENT”: POSTMODERN SAGA ON TRANSGRESSIVE AMERICAN CHINESENESS

Summary/Abstract: From a broad philological perspective, involving West/East culture, literature, philosophy, history, this paper highlights the mechanisms of literary representation and identity specificity in the interplay of constructed Chinese American images of „the Self” and „the Other” in Amy Tan’s latest novel The Valley of Amazement. The application of imagological methodology opens new vistas in researching Chinese American literature at the different stages of its formation. Imagological approach to the study of Amy Tan’s novel, based on comparative literary analysis, allows revealing the multiple dimensions of Chinese American identity through unveiling such categories as „Chineseness”, „Americanness”, „American Chineseness”, involving cross-cultural intertextuality and narrative intermediality. The emphasis is placed on literary representation of Chinese American images and synthesis of various cultural images and identities in portraying the changing nature of American Chineseness. The research is conducted with reference both to cultural, historical contextualization in the study of Chinese American images as dynamic results of cultural interaction of Chinese and American and in-depth analysis of the image qua image. Cultural globalization that has recently become a topic, much debated in literary circles, has resulted in the creation of a fictional character, unrestricted by ethnic, cultural, and territorial boundaries. This is the main protagonist of The Valley of Amazement, Violet Minturn. Her image has deeply personal, author-related meanings, and the paper investigates another dimension of American Chineseness, from identity resistance to identity transgression.

• Details
• Contents