Acculturation and Assimilation of A Chinese Woman in American West: McCunn’s Thousand Pieces of Gold

• Main Authors: Stella Lin, 林玉蕊
• Other Authors: Chan, Shu -Shun Herbert
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/06519772324854713559

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 外國文學所 === 95 === Abstract Ruthanne Lum McCunn, an Eurasian of Chinese and Scottish descent, researched and interviewed the people who knew the heroine. She wrote up the biographical novel—Thousand Pieces of Gold, which was adapted into a movie with the same title. The content of the novel is mainly about a Chinese girl, Polly, who is exchanged by his father for two bags of seeds because of the disasters of drought and bandits. And then she can’t be sold into pleasure houses without tiny bound feet. The girl dealer ships her to America and Polly is purchased by a saloon keeper. She finally procures her own freedom by means of a poker game. From then on she actively adapts herself into American society and achieves her accomplishment in the West. The main shaft of the novel is mainly about how the girl coming from the traditional Chinese world undergoes the culture conflicts and how she regulates the long-rooted values. She preserves the useful part of her original culture and forsakes something unfit for American society. Successfully assimilating herself into mainstream American society, Polly establishes her reputation in American West. This thesis is divided into three chapters. Chapter One makes a description of how the early Chinese women and immigrants live in American to rebuild up the background of Thousand Pieces of Gold. And three remarkable Chinese-American writers—Jade Snow Wong, Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kinston—and their works are introduced to explore the culture conflicts they may encounter. Chapter Two examines the culture conflicts Polly confronts after she contacts American culture and values. This chapter is divided into three parts. First, Polly receives the impact of racism upon arriving in America and is shocked at that different races wouldn’t be treated equally. And then the independence of the people in American West leads Polly to doubt the traditional Chinese concept that a woman’s happiness lies in her marriage. As a result, she is uncertain of the long-rooted concept of family. Chapter Three utilizes Berry’s acculturation theory to analyze the process and result of Polly’s acculturation and assimilation. When Polly becomes aware that there is no home in China for her to return, she strives for her own freedom and live independently like most of the people in American West. The desire for land leads her to forsake her bachelor and with marriage she claims a land for homestead. Polly is so successful in American West that there is a brook named after her. In contrast, the contemporary Chinese immigrants is forced to live in Chinatown and isolated from the mainstream American society, thus rejecting American culture. In conclusion, the process and the result of Polly’s acculturation conform to Berry’s theory. Even the result of the contemporary Chinese immigrants is still in Berry’s. The success of Polly’s assimilation breaks the monotonous impression that early Chinese immigrants seek for Gold to return to China for reunion with their family or they quarantine themselves in China town and rarely come out of the town for their lives.