Wisdom In Exchanging Love Familial Relationship Interpretation By "Social Exchange Theory"in Anne Tyler’s Novels

As one of the American contemporary best-selling writers, Anne Tyler is renowned for her delineation of the love, hate, desolation, alienation in contemporary middle class American families. The Beginner’s Goodbye depicts a middle-aged man Aaron who has lost wife in a tree trash accident could not get accustomed to the life psychologically; the deceased wife Dorothy materialize almost one year later and walks by him and talks with him. During their interactions, Aaron begins to reflect his failure in his lost marriage.In The Amateur Marriage Pauline and Michael, a perfect couple in other’s eyes, remain incompatible after thirty years marital life. They experienced Mrs. Anton’s death, eldest daughter Lindy’s running away from home and bringing up Lindy’s son Pagan, Michael leaves the family for he can no longer tolerate Pauline. He did not show up until Pauline died.Breathing Lessons is about Maggie and Ira’s journey to a funeral; even something embarrassed happen, their relationships are catalyzed to be stronger; Maggie entices Fiona to have a visit to Baltimore with Leroy, attempting to reunite Fiona and Jesse. However, the reunion dinner turns to be a fiasco.Social exchange theory postulates that human beings are exchanging with others. People exchange material or nonmaterial things. They pay out and expect rewards. What they pay out can be money, commodities as well as something intangible like time, energy, accompanying, love and care while rewards can be things such as appreciation, recognition, psychological support, praise, and inward satisfaction. It has been applied in interpersonal relationships, for instance, costs and rewards, in predicting parent-adolescent conflict in the single parent family and so on. However, few studies combine social exchange theory with literature critics, so the author aims at applying social exchange theory in analyzing familial relationships in literary works to enrich the critical reading of Anne Tyler’s novels.This thesis consists of four parts. A brief introduction about Anne Tyler and her novels will be given in Introduction, researches and discussions about her in the status duo domestically and abroad will be included. Besides, the significance of this thesis will be displayed as well. The main body will be analysis of various relationships by employing social exchange theory. The final conclusion sums up the former chapters and reiterates the significance of applying social exchange theory to read Anne Tyler’s novels. Academically, utilizing the theories from other disciplines in literary critics is worthy of recognition. Furthermore, to be familiar with social exchange theory will enlighten us in daily social interactions.