Letters of Penance: Writing America in Chinese and the Location of Chinese American Literature

MELUS ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 44-66
Author(s):  
M. Hillenbrand
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Chinese American ◽  
Chinese American Literature

scholarly journals Constructing “The Third Space” On Eat a Bowl of Tea

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 168
Author(s):  
Lingmin Zhou
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Third Space ◽  
Chinese American ◽  
Hybrid Identity ◽  
The Third ◽  
Cultural Negotiation ◽  
Critical Theories ◽  
The One ◽  
Chinese American Literature ◽  
Homogeneous Culture

Identity construction is always the motif of Chinese American literature. Many critical theories are adopted to analyze this issue. Homi K. Bhabha’s “the third space” is one of them. It refers to a place where it is not a combination of different positions, rather, it is “neither the One nor the Other but something else besides”. Eat a Bowl of Tea by Chinese American writer Louis Chu presents such Third Space. This paper first discusses the homogeneous old Chinatown culture which is patriarchal and impotent in Eat a Bowl of Tea and explains how Mei Oi causes the cultural split from this homogeneous culture by her independence and adultery. And then this paper discusses how the old Chinatown undergoes the cultural negotiation and finally realize its transformation. This paper points out that in this process of transformation, the characters construct their Third Space, which offers them hybrid identity and the sense of belonging.

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