From Silence To Resistance

As one of the most prominent Chinese American female writers, Amy Tan makes a name for herself in1989by publishing The Joy Luck Club. Her works stir up great attention both among common readers and literary circles for the particular creation of female images and the exquisite treatment of mother-daughter relationships. Amy Tan is adept at describing the conflicts between Chinese immigrant mother and America-born daughter as well as their final reconciliation. Her fourth novel The Bonesetter’s Daughter is another masterpiece that arouses echoes in Chinese American literature both home and abroad. Despite her vivid description about mother-daughter relationship, aphasia that the three women characters suffer from in different social contexts acts as a hidden thread connecting the life of three generations of a lineage closely together. This work is considered to be her most autobiographical one with her mother’s past experience in China and her own experience in America as the writing materials. Her identity and life experience as an ethnic woman in mainstream society make her fully aware of the dilemma that Chinese Americans confront.Aphasia in the study of culture and literature can be interpreted as the forced muteness or deprivation of voice. According to Spivak, the ethnic women in America are the gendered subaltern class who enjoys no power of discourse which definitely represents the loss of rights and identity. Obviously it is also the concern of Amy Tan in The Bonesetter’s Daughter. As no similar analysis has been conducted before, the thesis tries to find a new perspective to excavate the literary values of The Bonesetter’s Daughter. This thesis attempts to analyze the aphasia in The Bonesetter’s Daughter based on the post-colonial feminism, and reaches a conclusion that Chinese and Chinese American women can break the shackles of silence imposed on them by patriarchal society and white-centered American society and regain their voices and subjectivity through their own way.This thesis falls into five chapters. In the first chapter, the author gives a brief introduction to the significant position and great achievement of Amy Tan in Chinese American literature. The text The Bonesetter’s Daughter and the relevant literature review are also concluded in this part. Chapter Two is about the theoretical framework, that is, the post-colonial feminism. Chapter Three elaborates on the aphasia that the three women characters have been suffering from under the triple oppression of gender, race and patriarchy. Chapter Four attempts to illustrate through what kind of methods these Chinese American women break away from aphasia and establish their subjectivity to resist against oppression and discrimination. The last chapter serves as the Conclusion. It summarizes the previous analysis of this thesis and brings about the inadequacies of this thesis and other possible perspectives about The Bonesetter’s Daughter.The Bonesetter’s Daughter takes on great practical significance since its publication has diverted the concern of both literary critics and common readers to the underprivileged situation of Chinese American women and illuminates them to struggle in the cultural hegemony:culture is still the mightiest revolt against cultural discrimination and hegemony.