Writing the Asian American Artist: Maxine Hong Kingston's Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book

Abstract

Maxine Hong Kingston's genre crossing between autobiography, memoir, and fiction in The Woman Warrior: A Memoir of a Girlhood Among Ghosts generated a rethinking of traditional expectations of autobiography as a truthful representation of a writer's life, problematized constructed nature of identity, and brought attention to existence of collective literary protagonists and multiple points of view, thus raising questions about need for revision of genres that were often androcentric and Eurocentric in nature.(1) In Tripmaster Monkey: Fake Book, Kingston forces a similar re-viewing of traditional Kunstlerroman, novel about growth and maturation of an artist, as she tells story of a fifth-generation native Californian Chinese-American, Wittman Ah Sing. Set in sixties, this multi-layered, densely textured novel, with its multiplicity of interpretation and fluidity of meaning, challenges reader into using his/her wit--to become a `wit man/woman'--in order to make sense of seemingly rambling narrative.(2) The traditional Kunstlerroman highlights marginality of artist in its portrayal of typical image of a sensitive alienated soul at odds with a hostile world (see Beebe). More often than not, it is artist's unique artistic and intellectual sensibility that leads to this alienation from society. However, in most Kunstlerromane by American writers of color, not only are artists estranged from society because of that artistic sensibility, but they also suffer extreme marginalization as a result of race, gender, and/or class. Significantly, racially, ethnically, and/or sexually marginalized artist-protagonists in these Kunstlerromane want to move from margin to center or to help change existing meaning of margin and make it a site of agency and empowerment. Instead of retiring to an ivory tower or separating from society, as does protagonist in traditional Kunstlerroman, artist-protagonists work establishing identities as artists and Americans within society, not as outsiders, but as involved members of that society. Further, American artists of color seek equal participation in dominant American society not only for themselves but also for entire group and use their art to help realize this communal vision. Most importantly, they want to achieve this goal without compromising their ethnic, racial, and/or gender identity(ies). While this is not an essentialized paradigm for all Kunstlerromane by American writers of color, and it is necessary to take inter-minority and intraminority differences into account, many of show these characteristics.(3) In his discussion of revision or parodying of traditional forms or genres by writers, Henry Louis Gates Jr. asserts that it is an act of rhetorical (294). Kingston's redefinition of traditional Kunstlerroman in Tripmaster Monkey reflects such a purpose as she subverts and resists dominant discourse while envisioning new, non-stereotypical images of men and women, races and ethnic groups, believing that if we can imagine them, then we can work toward building and becoming them (Kingston, Interview 783). I His province is America. America, his province. Armed with a wild imagination, a caustic tongue, and intense fervor, Wittman Ah Sing, artist-protagonist of Tripmaster Monkey, is on a mission of self-definition and is out to subvert dominant society's attempts to stereotype him and his ethnic community. It is not, however, an easy task, and he is constantly in conflict with dominant society that spurs in him feelings of anger and frustration, alienation and despair. Not just a typical alienated artist, Wittman is a person who has never had a viable sense of self since he has lived in margins all his life. Suffering from social and psychological isolation, he even entertain[s] idea of suicide, though in next instant dismisses it as only a fantasy, saying it was just the run of his mind. …