An Analysis Of The Chinese And American Cultural Conflicts And Reconciliation In The Bonesetter's Daughter From The Perspective Of Women's Psychology

With the awakening of the multi-racial awareness in the United States from the late period of the 20th century, the American literature of diversified nationality rose gradually. The Chinese American writers also manifested this multi-racial awareness in literature. They put the cultures and historical background of their motherland into their literary works to represent the process of the Chinese Americans'struggle and bitterness in America. Appearance of this new kind of works added new blood to the American literature and produced new characteristics for it. The Chinese American literature is the result of collisions of the Chinese culture and the American culture. Therefore it shows new personalities and characteristics. Due to their special living experiences and social status, the Chinese American writers owned double cultural identities. They realized the double ethnic and cultural qualities of Chinese Americans, and they used their special experiences and angles of view to analyze the process of cultural reconciliation for Chinese Americans in the conflicts between the Chinese culture and the American culture. Amy Tan is one of the representatives of the Chinese American writers, and the cultural conflicts and reconciliation are manifested in her works The Bonesetter's Daughter.The thesis attempts to analyze the Chinese American cultural conflicts and reconciliation in The Bonesetter's Daughter from the perspective of women's psychology. It begins with the analysis of the Chinese American women's psychology in The Bonesetter's Daughter, and then it uses the feminist criticism and ethnic criticism to analyze their psychological condition under the new environment in America which transfers from inadaptation and resistance to accommodation and reconciliation and the influence on their psychological transformation. This thesis uses their special feelings to their living circumstances under the edification of the two kinds of cultures to analyze the process of the cultural conflicts and reconciliation from the perspectives of different societies'influences, awakening of the Chinese American women's gender identity and recognition of their ethnic identity.This thesis reflects the Chinese American women's process from struggle to reconciliation under the two different kinds of cultures in The Bonesetter's Daughter. It is of great importance to make a study of the history of the cultural conflicts and reconciliation and struggle of the Chinese Americans in the United States to the research of Chinese American literature.