New Myths Created by Cultural Misreading
 -------Interpretation of Maxine Hong Kingston's rewriting Chinese myths and folk stories in The Woman Warrior

                     Abstract


Chinese American literature experienced difficult development history as a unique literature school and the important part in American literature system. The literature writings of Chinese American appeared in the end of 19th century. After a long time of slow development, Chinese American literature obtained rapid development in 1960th and 1970th. In the nearly 30 years, all kinds of Chinese American literature writings came into being, and this period has become ?Golden age? of Chinese American literature. All kinds of forms of literature have been created, like novels, biography and dramas. The famous Chinese American writers published their representative works, and won the high praises from internal and international readers. The main representative works include The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, and The Dragon Year by Frank Chin and so on. Among these writings, some were awarded medals by the presidant, some were put into university textbook, and some were adapted into films and TV plays. The great achievement of Chinese American Literature in this time, make this literature school as an indispensable power among the schools of American literature.

Among the rich writings of Chinese American literature, the writing The Woman Warrior by Chinese American writer Maxine Hong Kingston, could be considered one of most typical writings. For development of the whole Chinese American literature, the writing of Maxine Hong Kingston inherited the previous traditions and usher in the future mission. Her writings have close relationships with the development of the whole Chinese American literature. In The Woman Warrior, in the form of biography, Maxine Hong Kingston described the live experience of the two generations Chinese American, her mother and herself. Through the lively description of development of her family in America, Maxine Hong Kingston expressed her oppose of racial discrimination, the pursuing of racial and gender equality, and the search for the identity of Chinese American.

With the unique double cultural backgrounds, and experiencing all kinds of hardships during developments, Chinese American literature present unique appearances. With the long standing traditional Chinese culture as background, In literature writings of Chinese American, traditional Chinese cultural p_w_picpaths, like allusions, tales and legends are usually quoted or adopted to express the writer's own thoughts or just use the past to allude to the present. In The Woman Warrior of Maxine Hong Kingston, two traditional Chinese legends were quoted, the two legends included: the story of the ancient Chinese woman hero Fa Mulan joined in the army in place of her father and served for the country, and the story of ancient Chinese woman poet Can Wenji live aboard in the Huns for 12 years. In development history of Chinese, the two traditional legends all have a long history and become well known by every people, and they have been revised in different artistic forms like poems and dramas. As a second generation Chinese American who was born in the family of Chinese immigrants and grown up in American mainstream society, Maxine Hong Kingston heard these stories from her family. She also made the p_w_picpaths of women in the legend stories as her modal. However, due to all kinds of reasons, Maxine Hong Kingston made reconstruction and rewriting on the traditional Chinese legends, and the new legends had large amounts of differences with the original version. The kind of method of reconstruction and rewriting is usually called cultural misreading. As a frequent skill and literature phenomenon in Chinese American literature, cultural misreading is being under the hot discussion of the critics. In someone's opinion, the cultural misreading could promote the development of cultural communication, and for the other people, this distort of traditional legends is betray of traditional culture. To some extent, the cultural misreading of Chinese American literature has been made a focus of disputes and research area.
 
This thesis made Maxine Hong Kingston and The Woman Warrior as the research objects, it is focused on the cultural misreading on the traditional Chinese folk stories and legends in forms of reconstructions and rewritings in The Woman Warrior. Based on the relative theories of cultural misreading, the thesis analysis the parts of reconstruction and rewritings on traditional Chinese woman hero Fa Mulan and famous woman poet Can Wenji in The Woman Warrior, it also researches the causes of creation and the significances. Through the comprehensive analysis, the thesis demonstrates the rationality and significance of cultural misreading of Maxine Hong Kingston. The whole thesis is divided into four chapters:

The first chapter is the introduction. In the first the thesis makes a brief introduction of Chinese American literature is made. Through description of the concept and development history of Chinese American literature, the whole scene of Chinese American literature could be revealed. Then the Chinese American Maxine Hong Kingston will be made as the focus, the thesis makes a brief introduction of her life, then introduces the main contents of different parts in Maxine's representative writing: The Woman Warrior.

In the second chapter, firstly from three sides of American white mainstream society, the supportive opinions and the blames from the other Chinese American writers, the thesis described the detailed reviews of Maxine and Woman Warrior. Among these reviews, ?the arguments between Frank Chin and Maxine Hong Kingston? were made as the focus point. After the list of reviews, the thesis introduces the detailed contents of cultural misreading, its different expressions and the causes.

The third chapter is the description of the most important cultural misreading in The Woman Warrior: the famous traditional legend of Fa Mulan replaced her father to join in the army and the 18 years' live experiences of the famous woman poet Can Wenji in Huns, and the new rewriting versions in The Woman Warrior. Through comparison of legend experiences and mental description of the leading roles in the original texts and rewriting versions, the main forms of cultural misreading in The Woman Warrior will be revealed.

The fourth chapter is the analysis of causes of cultural misreading in The Woman Warrior. The analysis is divided into three sides, and it is described in the sides of indirect cultural sources, writer's special identity a Chinese American and the special social and cultural backgrounds. Though the analysis, the thesis shows that it is the special backgrounds and reasons to cause the cultural misreading through the methods of reconstruction and rewriting.

The fifth chapter is the interpretation of the significance of cultural misreading of Maxine Hong Kingston on the Chinese myths, folk stories and legends. Through two sides: the influences on Chinese literature and worldwide cultural integration, they these expressed the positive attitude on the cultural misreading of Maxine Hong. And the positive significance of the cultural misreading will be indicated: the promotion of revival and new development of Chinese literature and the constructive significance of worldwide cultural integration.
The sixth part is the conclusion of the whole thesis, in this part, the important influence of The Woman Warrior is indicated, and then it introduces briefly the different comments of the reconstruction and rewriting of Maxine Hong Kingston on the traditional Chinese myths, legends and folk stories from different groups. With the different opinions, from three sides, the pure literature expression methods, the social background and the thoughts expressed in the writing, the contributions for the cultural integration, the positive meaning of reconstruction and rewriting of traditional Chinese stories is reaffirmed. From the writing, the myths created by cultural misreading of Maxine Hong Kingston indicate a new direction of cultural development.

Key Words: Chinese American literature, Maxine Hong Kingston, Woman Warrior, cultural misreading