Memories And Expectations

Amy Tan is one of the most influential Chinese American writers in America, and The Joy Luck Club, her first novel makes her become famous overnight, which is one of the novels that Chinese are most familiar with and make too much research on. She is skilled at telling stories, and she lays emphasis on dealing with the relationship between mothers and daughters in her novels. The Bonesetter's Daughter belongs to one of them, which is the fourth novel written by her. This novel is Amy Tan's autobiography to some extent, and the stories happening between the mothers and the daughters are impressive. Differing from her other novels, those women in this novel tell their stories with written words instead of narrating mainly. Amy Tan pays too much attention to the living situations of Chinese American in her novels, especially Chinese American women, so probing into the connotation of her works is meaningful, which can inspire some thoughts about the inner world of Chinese American women in us.Scholars at home and abroad have made relevant research on The Bonesetter's Daughter with different perspectives, which mainly center on the relationship between mothers and daughters, the pursuit of identities, cultural conflicts, friction in the Chinese families etc.. In addition, some other scholars have applied contemporary literature theories such as deconstructionism, feminist, postcolonialism and so on in analyzing this novel.This thesis intends to make a research on the memories of Precious Auntie, Luling and Ruth in The Bonesetter's Daughter with Spectral Criticism so as to understand the dilemma and expectation of the three women's in three different generations. Although the three women were in different generations, the same situations they were in—losing their voice made them adopt the same way to tell their stories—by writing. Under the guidance of the Spectral Criticism introduced by David Punter, the existence of "specter" makes a text have some other meanings as well as telling history. Hence, making relevant research on the three women characters'memories do help us know their inner world. In the meantime, this is a good perspective for us to know the living situation of Chinese women.The first part of this thesis contains the introduction to the present situation about the research on Amy Tan and her novels as well as the prospects of this research on applying the Spectral Criticism to the analysis about the novel, which includes the meaning and aim of this thesis.The main body in this thesis is made up of five chapters. The first Chapter is about the novel's literature review, which provides the relevant researches about this novel at home and abroad.The second chapter is an introduction to Amy Tan and this novel.The third chapter introduces the Specter Criticism, and states the relationship between specters and a text as well as history. It points out that it's "specter" that makes a text have some secrets which couldn't be told when the text showing us a story, and deserves our efforts to get messages hidden in the text. In addition, history in a text has shown persons'confusion, worry, doubt and fear, and expressed an uncertain psychological state between live and death, so learning a person's history described by himself will help us know his present situation.The fourth chapter makes an analysis about the plights of the three women in three different generations through studying the "specter" elements in their memories. They are oppressed by masculine society. Besides, Luling and Ruth are persecuted by the conflicts between Chinese culture and American culture. Although they are in three different generations, and the places they live in are also different, all of them try to get some comfort through writing down their own stories. They need a chance to speak, so writing is a way to help the three women, who have got lost in reality.The fifth chapter is the most important one in this part, and it probes into the message hidden in their memories. Precious Auntie, Luling and Ruth choose writing as a way to speak because of the plights they were in, which convey their expectation for the future. Those memories reveal the period of pursuing their identities, including their gender identities and ethnic identities, and their spiritual home.The last part is the conclusion about this thesis. Amy Tan's identity, an American Chinese, makes her know more about the living situation of Chinese women:both the traditional Chinese women who are oppressed by the patriarchal society and Chinese American women who are living between American culture and Chinese culture are in the situation of being marginalized."Losing their voices" for a long time make them eager to utter their stories. Through the interpretation of The Bonesetter's Daughter with the Spectral Criticism, it can be found that not only do the women characters' memories tell us their stories but also show the period of establishing their identities and pursuing their spiritual home. Those memories show the developing periods of the three women's psychologies actually.