A Voice Of Their Own: Reading Amy Tan's The Bonesetter's Daughter From The Point Of View Of Third World Feminism

Amy Tan, a representative of Chinese American writers, is famed all over the world for delineating the mother-daughter relationship and exploring how to bridge the gap between Chinese immigrant mothers and Americanized daughters. In her works, cultural conflict, generational gap and emotional disturbance always appeal to a wide circle of readers. In 2001, Amy Tan published The Bonesetter's Daughter, which achieved both popular and critical acclaim. As the most personal novel, it centers on the relationship between mothers and daughters again, depicting the emotional experience of three generations in one maternal lineage.The thesis, from the perspective of Third World feminism, explores that Amy Tan strives for seeking women's effaced voice and highlights the way in which Chinese and Chinese American women articulate their inner voices and express their needs. It is mainly divided into four parts. Chapter One briefly summarizes Third World feminism and Amy Tan's literary achievement. Chapter Two illustrates that the three female characters---Precious Auntie, LuLing and Ruth, break silence through constructing their female subjectivities in different contexts. Chapter Three focuses on Amy Tan's writing strategies. In The Bonesetter's Daughter, Tan's writing skill---"quilting"implies the interweaving of female narrative voice, talk-story and mother tongue. The metaphorical"quilting"can be traced back to her preceding novels, The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, and The Hundred Secret Senses. It is used to reflect women's sensibility and spirit. Chapter Four analyzes the interrelation between The Bonesetter's Daughter and Amy Tan's family history. With the combination of her own living background, Amy Tan presents Ruth's growing process so as to chart a strenuous but inspiring journey for tens of thousands of Chinese American women who are often at a loss of how to define themselves in a doubly-marginalized situation.