Mother Image Inamy Tan’s Novels

Amy Tan is one of the representative writers of Chinese American literature. Herworks are widely recognized by readers and critics with their distinct themes andunique style. Based on her personal life experience,Amy Tan creats a series of motherimage in her novels, such as The Joy Luck Club, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, TheKitchen God’s Wife and The Inspiration Girl. Though mothers’ personal fates aredifferent, they face similar dilemmas and roughly the same spiritual evolution. AmyTan explores mother-daughter relationship and meditates on Chinese and westerncultures through mother image. Mother is the emotional center of her novels. Thisthesis gives a comprehensive analysis on mother image in Amy Tan’s novels by closereading.The thesis is divided into five parts. The introduction gives a profile of AmyTan’s life and works, and summarizes the research status in China and overseas inrecent years. The first chapter combs the contour of mother image and analyzes themultiple troubles faced by mothers in the past and present. Painful childhoodexperiences, arranged marriage and war brought mothers endless sufferings and painswhich have embedded in their lives as permanent injuries. After immigration to theU.S. successfully, mothers are discriminated by the American society, living a driftinglife in a foreign country. Besides, there are many conflicts between mothers and theirAmerican born daughters. The mother-daughter relationship has been in a rigid state.All of these plights trouble mothers greatly.The second chapter analyzes mothers’actual roles and spiritual evolution process.Mothers are deprived of the right of discourse in a patriarchal society, and theirself-awareness is almost in a sleeping state. Under multiple miseries and oppressions,mothers’ self-consciousness begins to awake. They pluck up their courage to revoltagainst the patriarchal society. They break up silence and express themselves bravely, and escape from sufferings finally. In the American society, both the inherent Chinesenature and the minority discrimination in American society make it difficult formothers to integrate into American society. And they become the marginalized other.But mothers try to fit in American culture actively. By reminiscing about their past inChina, mothers ascertain their own identity, and are eventually accepted by the localcommunity. In the rigid mother-daughter relationship, mothers are always confused.They try to guide their daughters with their own life experiences, to get them awayfrom life’s hardships. But they can’t get their daughters’ understanding andappreciation. Mothers try to get their daughters’ understandingthrough active seeking communication with daughters. In the end, mother-daughterrelationship turned to reconciliation from conflict.The third chapter interprets culture connotation of mother image in Amy Tan’snovels. Mothers were born and grew up in China, accepted the infiltration of Chinesetraditional culture for a long time, and Chinese nature roots in them deeply. There aremany marks of Chinese culture in mothers’ past and present. Mothers have becomethe carrier of Chinese traditional culture and the only object for daughters tounderstand Chinese culture and history to determine their own ethnic identity. Theyset up a connection between history and reality by using their own memory,transferring and inheriting Chinese culture in a foreign country. By these ways, theyhelp themselves and their daughters find their own ethnic memory, ascertain their ownethnic identity, and escape from plights in life.The conclusion part summarizes the main points, emphasizes the importance ofmother image in Amy Tan’s novels, and reiterates the viewpoints of this thesis.