Diaspora. "the Bonesetter Of Female Identity Is Constructed

Amy Tan is a famous Chinese American diaspora writer, and The Bonesetter's Daughter is her fourth novel. Compared to her former works, this novel concentrates on one couple of Chinese American diaspora mother and daughter, describes more about their diaspora awareness and mental wondering between both Chinese culture and American culture, and gives more concerns about the exilic subject's experience when they have to claim their cultural identity between the superior and the inferior cultures, which is a combination of anxiety and wish, bitter and rejoice. As a result of cronus, diasporas have to endure the recessive cultural schizophrenia and conflict against the dominant. Therefore, the definition and construction of diaspora identity means "root-regain" in the context of history and culture.Literature is an important carrier for culture, and literary image is one of the essential literature elements, containing profound cultural meanings. This thesis is developed from the diaspora angle and breaks through the theme of "root-lost and root-regain" and related images to explore the diaspora identity construction. Meanwhile, the paper is a result of "close reading", and unearth from words and phrases the diaspora's mentality and their agency to construct identity. The thesis consists of six parts:the first part is the literature review on Tan's works from home and abroad and introduction to the critical approach—the diaspora criticism used in this paper; the second part gives a brief introduction to the word "diaspora" and its new meaning, diaspora identity crisis, the history of Chinese American diaspora literature and the theme of "root-lost and root-regain" of The Bonesetter's Daughter as a diaspora novel; the third part focuses on the diaspora feelings and identity crisis out of "root-lost" by analyzing images; the fourth part decodes culturally the images of "invisible father", "the Mother" and "home" and proves the important role the three play in diaspora identity construction; the fifth part is on the agency, by studying the image of "Ruth", which can help diaspora construct an identity as a cultural translator; the last part is the conclusion.