An Archetypal Study of Maxine Hong Kingston’s Work: The Woman Warrior

Abstract

This article takes Maxine Hong Kingston’s works — The Woman Warrior as the object of study. Relying on Frye’s myth and archetypal criticism, through the analysis of myths and literary classical archetypal images, the paper illustrates Maxine Hong Kingston’s rewriting process systematically, thus discussing Chinese American’s survival condition and their inner world, and Chinese American’s dissimilation and naturalization in the dominant heterogeneous culture. Meanwhile, the thesis points out that Maxine Hong Kingston’s strategy of adapting myth is, in fact, a kind of recreation of literature. She has created a new form of “American myths”.