Chapter One Literature Review

Amy Tan's work is studied by the western scholars earlier than by Chinese scholars, mostly from the perspectives of mother-daughter relationship, ethnic identity, ideology and cultural identity。 To begin with, western scholars believed that the idea Amy held in her novels and the dominant ideology of America share the same characteristic。 Meanwhile, there are some literary critics criticizing Amy for the reason that some depictions in her novels are meant to satisfy her western reader and the western society。 Secondly, according to feminism, it is also noticed that the hero or the dominant characters are usually female, while the male characters are less capable, either physically or mentally, which leads the researchers to reason this phenomenon。 Scholars concluded that Amy Tan's novels have both a reflection of feminism position and a demonstration of the persecution towards women in the old Chinese society。 Being a descendent of Chinese immigrants, Amy Tan and her work have provoked a great trend of literary scholars and researchers investigating her novels and the male or female images in her work。 According to "The Domestic Research Overview of Amy Tan's The Bonesetter's Daughter from 2003 to 2014" by Xu Yan (2014), the literary research on Amy Tan's "The Bonesetter's Daughter" has been inactive in mainland China for the past ten years。 18 out of the 74 research articles about The Bonesetter's Daughter investigate the Chinese ethnic identity, 8 about the post-colony feminism and 10 about the narration mode; 7 out of 74 study the changes in mother-daughter relationship; 7 out of 74 research the cultural conflict between oriental and western values。 The researches above account for approximately 43% of all the researches in mainland China。 There are some less popular thesis discussing the topics of female images, family ethics, and Chinese immigrants' traumatic memories, the themes of mysterious oriental image, cross-cultural communication, and silence, and from the perspective of eco-criticism。 文献综述

However, the male image in this novel is little studied。 Xiong Jie investigated in Amy Tan's three novels from a feminist perspective in her paper "Analysis of the Son Images in Amy Tan Work" in 2012。 Xiong Jie discovers that the male images are marginalized, either deficient or "silent"。 The traditional patriarchy is under subversion and deconstruction, taking The Joy Luck Club, two sons of Linda take turns to cook, which is supposed to be done by women from a traditional point of view of the labor pision。 The son images in a patriarchy background are subverted and little mentioned, as they fail to inherit the braveness, independence, toughness, and other good qualities from their mothers。 The Joy Luck Club, Amy's most famous work, is often studied by scholars, so there are numerous research articles about it。 Xu Yan, Sheng Zhouli and Li Lan inquired into the male images in The Joy Luck Club in 2011 as they published the article The Interpretation of the Male Images in The Joy Luck Club。 In Old China, men are imperious and despotic, regarded as the masculine authority。 Wang Yu's The Fate of Male Characters in the Chinese American Literary—taking The Bonesetter's Daughter as an example (2013) in Journal of Foreign Language, investigates the novel from orientalism, otherization, and marginalization。 Wang Yu discovers that more male characters are in this novel than in Amy's previous works, their fate more variable, the contracts in image and fate between male characters more severe。 In the first and third parts, 9 male characters in total exist, 3 directly related to the narrator Ruth, and 6 indirectly related。 All the nine characters are seemingly positive and affirmative, some young and strong, some rich and humorous, some polite and responsible。 By contrast, in the second part which happened in mainland China in old times, the image of the male characters is negative; 8 men all share the same tragic life, some killed by the Japanese invaders, some murdered on the day of wedding, some killed by opium overdose, some dead lonely。 Through studying the male images in these three parts, separately narrated by Ruth and Lu Ling, Wan Yu summarizes the men's politeness, elegance, and kindness in Ruth's narration contrasting with the men's indecision, lasciviousness, and unfortunateness, are influenced by multiple cultural factors。 This is a compromise that Amy pictures the white men a brighter image, to win a place in American literary field, as many other Chinese American writers do。 However, her negative opinion on men can be observed between lines。 来,自,优.尔:论;文*网www.youerw.com +QQ752018766-