The Narrator’s Pangs in Pangs of Love : Uncertainty of Cultural Identity

Pangs of Love tells the experiences of Chinese American immigrants, and especially the pangs the narrator, as a second generation, feels in family, love and social affairs. Based on the analysis of the narrator’s pangs, this paper argues that it is mainly the uncertainty of cultural identity that leads to the pangs of the narrator, and of the second generation Chinese Americans. This paper shows that the second generation can take advantage of their dual but conflicting cultural heritages to develop a renewed and specific cultural identity.