| Abstract: | The "Culture of Sustenance" is a dominant theme throughout the works of Maxine Hong Kingston as she uses the act of eating and images of food metaphorically and symbolically to define the connection between food and identity. Eating and food become methods of sustenance on many levels; characters maintain themselves physically as well as spiritually and socially through the intake of food. Kingston's novels explore the contrasting ideas, beliefs, purposes, and social meanings of food in the culture of China as opposed to that of America. The contrast is vivid, and the effects upon Chinese assimilation into American culture-the process of becoming Chinese-American-are closely related to the immigrants' eating habits and their relationship with food. Kingston describes the confusion of assimilation and the contrast of cultures as a direct result of conflicting ideas about food and survival. In The Woman Warrior (1975), China Men (1977), and Tripmaster Monkey (1989), Kingstone uses images of good and bad eating, sustaining versus wasting, food as a source of both personal and cultural identity, and the relationship of food to community and family to chronicle the process of Chinese assimilation into American culture. Food also provides a link between the past and the future, and it is instrumental in rebuilding an American Chinese community and in forming a collective voice. |
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