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Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston both compose fiction through the lenses of gender and ethnicity. Both authors use symbolism, imagery, and rhetorical strategies to provide unique insight into Asian American experiences and identity. Likewise, both Tan and Kingston show how gender impacts their self-concept and status within the overarching patriarchal society. Their work can and should be read concurrently to best appreciate the gamut, diversity, and breath of the Asian-American female experience. Although Tan and Kingston naturally have different perspectives based on their own personal experiences and also on their different social and political goals, these two authors share much in common in terms of their elucidation of how racism and patriarchy intersect in American society.
Amy Tan’s most famous work is likely The Joy Luck Club, which focuses on mother-daughter relationships within the Chinese American subculture. The emphasis on mother-daughter relationships stresses the significance of gender to identity construction. Likewise, Maxine Hong Kingston focuses mainly on gender issues in The Woman Warrior. Both Tan and Kingston show how patriarchal norms impact identity and demonstrate different ways Asian women subvert or challenge those patriarchal norms. Tan is especially cognizant of the role that generational differences play, as the characters in The Joy Luck Club change their attitudes and outlooks to reflect corresponding shifts in American society. In addition to explicating gender roles and norms, both Tan and Kingston talk about how Asians are perceived through the eyes of non-Asians, and how those perceptions impact self-concept.
Tan and Kingston differ in their tone, style, and storytelling methods but both firmly address race, gender, and social status in their novels. Using the medium of fiction allows both Tan and Kingston to explore the political implications of self-empowerment. Their respective semi-autobiographical novels avoid overt polemics but still do invite discursive practices and critical inquiry.
Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan Tan's debut novel is arguably one of the most famous works of Asian-American writing. It is one of the few works with an explicitly Asian theme to find mainstream popularity. The novel remained on the New York Times best-seller list for nine months and was later adapted into a hit movie. To date, no other Asian-American novel has matched the critical and popular success of
Woman Warrior Maxine Kingston's Woman warrior has been a controversial addition to the literature written by Chinese-American writers. The writer has tried to answer the critical question of Chinese-American identity and hence been criticized for adopting an orientalist framework to win approval of the west. The woman warrior speaks of a culture that neatly fits the description of the "Other" in the orientalist framework. It appears alien, remote and immensely
North American Literature of the 20th Century: A Literature of Alienation North American literature of the twentieth century began as a predominantly white male-dominated literature, on the heels of 19th century romantic literary expression, such as within the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Stephen Crane, and others. Similarly, in the early decades of the 20th century, American literature was dominated by the likes of William