A Study Of Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant From The Perspective Of Feminist Ethics

Anne Tyler is a famous contemporary American novelist and literary critic.Many of her novels are regarded as the pinnacle of American contemporary female novels.Tyler pays close attention to family life and marriage in a witty style,and meticulously depicts the details of everyday life and the images of ordinary people,for which she has won praises from readers and critics.Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is Tyler's ninth novel,in which she portrays the life of the Tulls with a focus on the tensions and estrangement therein,thus reflecting the status quo of contemporary American family.Though often discussed,there is rare use of feminist ethics to analyze the novel.Traditional feminist writers often create stories of women resisting patriarchy,whereas Tyler largely concentrates her writing on daily life and family ethics.This thesis intends to probe into the family tragedy in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant from the perspective of feminist ethics.Firstly,it analyses the presentation model of the family tragedy of the Tull family in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant:the split of family structure and the alienation of family relationships.Secondly,it explores the ethical factors contributing to the family tragedy.On one hand,the father's escape breaks the traditional family balance.On the other hand,the mother's dedication to maintaining traditional ethics and the resulting psychological distortion make the family fragmented and aggravate the family crisis.In this novel,men act as the spokesperson of patriarchal traditional ethics.They not only misinterpret the meaning of family,but also impose constraints and oppression on women;while women,affected by traditional ethics,lack women's self-awareness,resulting in ethical loss and wrong ethical choices.Finally,the thesis explores the ethical inspiration of the novel to the readers and points out that the novel embodies Tyler's feminist ethical thought:only by emphasizing human concern and gender equality can we re-establish the ethical order and build an ideal,complete and harmonious family ethical environment.