From Confusion To Awakening

Amy Tan is a well-known Chinese American woman writer.She specializes in the portrayal of the mother-daughter relationship.The Bonesetter's Daughter,her fourth novel,was highly praised as soon as it was published.The novel tells the story of three generations of women,grandmother,mother and daughter.In this novel,Amy Tan,as a master storyteller,skillfully uses narrative skills to vividly depict the growing process of mother and daughter from silence to vocalization,from misunderstanding to understanding,and from confusion to awakening,deeply revealing the inner world of Chinese American women.At present,most of the studies on The Bonesetter's Daughter are from the perspective of ethnic identity and cultural identity,but few from the perspective of feminist narratology.Moreover,there is a certain gap in the study of the combination of the feminist narrative characteristics in the novel with female discursive authority,female subjectivity and female consciousness.Therefore,this thesis analyses the novel from the perspective of feminist narratology and adopts three narrative strategies,namely narrative voice,narrative discourse and narrative point of view to mainly explore female discursive authority,female subjectivity and female consciousness in the novel and help readers have a more comprehensive understanding of the feminist narrative characteristics embodied in the novel.This thesis consists of five chapters.In the first chapter,Amy Tan's personal experiences and her work,The Bonesetter's Daughter,will be introduced in detail.Then,the development of feminist narrattology will be presented,and the characteristics of feminist narrative strategies,such as narrative voice,free indirect discourse and narrative point of view,will be elaborated as well.In the second chapter,the narrative voice will be analyzed in The Bonesetter's Daughter to embody the construction of female discursive authority of two heroines,Ruth and LuLing.In the third chapter,the narrative discourse will be analyzed in the novel to embody the realization of female subjectivity of Ruth.In the fourth chapter,the narrative point of view will be analyzed in the novel to embody the awakening of female consciousness of Ruth,LuLing and Precious Auntie.The last chapter is a conclusion of the thesis.