An Analysis Of The Tragedy In Everything I Never Told You From The Perspective Of Jean-Paul Sartre’S Existentialism

Although Chinese Americans are a member of the American ethnic minority,they have always been ignored by mainstream of society for their low social status.Chinese American literature has gone much the same way.Chinese American literatures were created by Chinese people who reached the American continent in the19 th century.After several generations of Chinese American writers’ painstaking efforts,dozens of excellent writers’ outstanding works poured into the mainstream of American literature,such as Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Women Warrior,David Henry Hwang’s M.Butterfly,Gish Jen’s Typical American,Amy Tan’s the Joy Luck Club.Ever since then,Chinese Americans literature with few good works has gone into stable development in the American literary world.At this time,according to her personal experiences in a multi-racial,cross-cultural American society,and in-depth reflection on a series of life difficulties faced by inter-racial families,Celeste Ng’s first novel Everything I Never Told You was published,after working hard for six years.Celeste Ng quickly becomes a Chinese America writer who conquered European and American literary circles.The novel describes an ordinary Chinese American family-a white mother Marilyn,a Chinese father James,and their eldest son Nath and their favorite daughter Lydia.The family has encountered various life crises and suffered different unfair treatments in American society.However,they have made different choices.This thesis employs Sartre’s existentialism to further analyze the cause of the tragedy in Everything I Never Told You.The first is to analyze the gender discrimination faced by Marilyn and the racial discrimination encountered by James,from Sartre’s viewpoint that world is absurd.Second,in an absurd world,this interracial family is ajar with the white society and naturally is an object of everyone’s curiosity.At last,according to Sartre’s free choice,four protagonists in thenovel made different choices,which ultimately led to different consequences.James and Marilyn finally made compromise,gave up their illusory expectations and dreams,and faced the pain in life.Lydia chose to commit suicide to get rid of the pressure from her family and society.Their eldest son Nath was so brave that he stuck to his dream and led the life he longed for.The personal experiences and final choices of the characters in the novel are in line with Sartre’s main points.According to Sartre’s thoughts,the world is absurd,people accidentally came to this world and felt restricted and hindered everywhere.At the same time,Sartre emphasizes that god is dead,and that people are free in the world.People can realize their own value and explore the meaning of individual existence through a series of personal choices.This thesis uses the theory of Sartre’s existentialism to study Everything I Never Told You,revealing the plight of the James’ family and the cause of Lydia’s tragedy in a white-dominated society.The analysis of the novel has a far-reaching meaning,which hopes to provide a help for other interracial families to resolve family conflicts,parent-child relations,social discrimination.At the same time,the thesis hopes that individuals living in mixed-race families can make personal positive choices like Nath to avoid the recurrence of tragedies like Lydia.