Within Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel American Born Chinese, the development of the Monkey King serves as an allegory for the development of Jin. Both characters strive to fit into their distinct environments, but soon realize that conforming to someone else's idea of them only causes a loss of identity. Ultimately, American Born Chinese explores the idea that it is unfulfilling and impossible to be someone other than oneself.
Yang first introduces the reader to the Monkey King. The Monkey King is a deity who rules over the monkeys on Flower-Fruit Mountain. When he arrives at a dinner party in Heaven, he is told that he must wear shoes and is turned away for being a monkey. The Monkey King then declares that all monkeys in his kingdom must wear shoes and spends eighty days studying kung-fu to manipulate his form. He begins to appear more human and declares himself “The Great Sage, Equal of Heaven” (Yang 60). Tze-Yo-Tzuh explains to the Monkey King that he should take pride in being himself. The Monkey King does not accept Tze-Yo-Tzuh’s wish, so Tze-Yo-Tzuh imprisons the Monkey King under a mountain for 500 years. The Monkey King only frees himself when he returns to his true form to assist Wong Lai-Tsao from being eaten by demons. The Monkey King then agrees to be a disciple of Wong Lai-Tsao and takes off his shoes. By taking off his shoes and returning to his true form, the Monkey King embraces his monkey identity.
Jin Wang is the novel’s protagonist. Jin is a Chinese American boy and is one of only a few Asian students at his school. So, Jin does everything in his power to become as American and as white as possible. When Wei-Chen, a Taiwanese boy, joins Jin’s class in the fifth grade, Jin feels hostility toward him. However, they bond over their mutual love of Transformers and quickly become friends. Once Jin reaches the seventh grade, he falls in love with Amelia. He perms his hair to look like his popular classmate Greg and asks Wei-Chen to lie for him, so he can go on a date with Amelia. The herbalist’s wife comes to Jin in a dream and transforms him into Danny, a blond, white boy. Danny is obsessed with being popular, and when his Chinese cousin visits, it poses major problems for him. Chin-Kee, Danny’s cousin, embodies many negative, racist stereotypes about Chinese people. Danny eventually discovers that Chin-Kee is the Monkey King, and after an epic battle, Danny reassumes his form as Jin and begins to take pride in his Chinese identity.
The development of the Monkey King serves as an allegory for the development of Jin. The Monkey King says, "You know, Jin, I would have saved myself from five hundred years' imprisonment beneath a mountain of rock had I only realized how good it is to be a monkey" (Yang 223). This statement illustrates the shared struggle between the Monkey King and Jin. The Monkey King wanted to be anything other than a monkey, and Jin wanted to be anything but Chinese. Ultimately, both characters develop throughout their stories and realize that transforming into someone else is unfulfilling and impossible.
I agree with your analysis that the Monkey King's story serves as an allegory to Jin and how he grows as a character. The Monkey King is able to help teach Jin to be proud of his identity because he has already experienced and learned from trying to be something he isn't. The theme of embracing your identity is paralleled across all three stories and reveals the dangers of assimilation. One of the most important symbols of the graphic novel is the Transformers toy. Jin and Wei-Chen bond over their shared love of Transformers, which is an example of American media. Just because the boys enjoy the toy does not mean that they should embrace it and try to transform into someone other than themselves. The Monkey King's imprisonment under a mountain of rocks perfectly parallels this message as well. Only after transforming into his true self does he realize that he is no longer trapped and that Tze-Yo-Tzuh was right. Tze-Yo-Tzuh's message is to accept oneself the way you were created and to embrace it. He created the Monkey King with, "awe and wonder, for wonderful are all of my works" (Yang ). By changing what he is the Monkey King loses the wonder and beauty of his true self. The Monkey King helping Jin to learn to be proud of his identity and not lose himself through assimilation parallels Gene Luen Yang's purpose in writing American Born Chinese.
ReplyDeleteI think you did a great job in this post analyzing how the three distinct storylines in American Born Chinese work together to convey the message of self-acceptance. The stories of the Monkey King and of Chin-Kee conveys the reasonings behind Jin's insecurity in his identity and why it is so hard for him to present his true self to the world. The journey of the Monkey King represents the mistake of basing one's self-respect on what others think of them. Despite being extremely powerful, the Monkey King does not respect himself because his identity is looked down upon by those who he wishes to validate him. It's clear that their validation shouldn't be necessary for someone so much more powerful than them, but because the Monkey King makes the mistake of valuing their opinion over his own, just like Jin does, he is cursed to forever feeling less than. The character of Chin-Kee reinforces this idea by characterizing all of the stereotypes that Jin is trying to escape when rejecting his identity in favor of validation. Instead of realizing the absurdity of those stereotypes, Jin subconsciously accepts them by attempting to separate himself from his culture. But by the end of the book, Jin realizes that the validation he desires needs to come from himself, and the only way to do that is by accepting who he is. By learning from the insecurity of the Monkey King and the absurdity of Chin-Kee, Jin realizes that self-respect doesn't come from others, but from himself.
ReplyDelete