Self-recognition And Self-reconstruction: Analyzing The Bonesetter’s Daughter From The Perspective Of Uncanny Theory

As one of the most representative Chinese American female writers, Amy Tan isexpert in choosing the females’ life in Chinese immigrant families as her subject. Herworks normally focus on the themes of gender and identity, cultural conflicts, etc.Among all her works, The Bonesetter’s Daughter (2001) is autobiographical amongher other fictional writings. It focuses on the theme of cultural identity and themother-daughter relationship.This thesis aims to employ the Freudian Uncanny Theory to analyze thepsychological development for the breakthrough of LuLing’s and Ruth’s inner fears,which are the causes for the identity confusion between Chinese identity andAmerican identity, and the conflicts in the mother-daughter relationship. Dependingon the framework of The Uncanny published in1919by Sigmund Freud, the thesisapplies the theoretical methods to analyze the novel from three perspectives: the fearof ghost images, the uncanny effects of silence and the fear of double and death. Thethesis tries to further prove that the fears of uncanny bring LuLing and Ruth morecourage to face their true selves and to break the barrier to get through the process ofself-reconstruction. This study provides a new way to appreciate and analyze TheBonesetter’s Daughter.