Tam Lum: A Chickencoop Chinaman as an Asian American Tragic Hero

Abstract

                   This paper examines how Frank Chin re-appropriates the tragic hero trope to critique a profound modern problem of identity crisis in the play Chickencoop Chinaman. The focus is on investigating how the struggles and failures of the protagonist and the tragic hero, Tam Lum, reflect the crisis most Chinese immigrants living in the 1960s were experiencing, when Asian American as a national identity was beginning to form.