摘 要

《接骨师之女》是著名的华裔女作家谭恩美的第四部力作。和谭恩美的其他小说一样，《接骨师之女》以中美文化为背景，突出母女之间的冲突以及最终女儿对母亲的理解。本文从《接骨师之女》的家庭伦理观出发，分析了小说中中国传统家庭伦理在美国文化背景下的窘境和华裔美国家庭伦理的重建，从而探究了作者对于华裔美国家庭的深刻思考。

关键词：谭恩美；《接骨师之女》；家庭伦理观；冲突；和解

Contents

1. Introduction................................................................................................................1

2. Demonstration............................................................................................................3

2.1. Contradictions and conflicts: The predicament of Traditional Chinese Family Ethics in American Culture …………………………………………………………...3

2.1.1 On Love and Marriage……………………..........................................................3

2.1.2 On Education…………………............................................................................5

2.1.3 On Individual Values ……...................................................................................6

2.2.4 On Family Responsibilities………………..........................................................7

2.2. Reconciliation and Co-existence: A Reconstruction of Chinese-American Family Ethics…………………………………….....................................................................8

2.2.1 On Freedom and Equality………………………….............................................8

2.2.2On mother-daughter relationship….......................................................................9

2.2.3 On friendship and sisterhood…….......................................................................10

2.3.4. On identity construction……………….............................................................10

3. Conclusion................................................................................................................11

Works Cited.................................................................................................................13

Bibliography.................................................................................................................14

A Study of Family Ethics in The Bonesetter’s Daughter

1. Introduction

Amy Tan is one of the prominent Chinese American writers, whose works explore mother-daughter relationship and the Chinese-American experiences. Her best-known work is The Joy Luck Club (1989), which has been translated into 35 languages. In 1993, the book is adapted into a commercially successful film. Tan has written several other bestselling novels, including The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991), The Husband Secret Sense (1995), The Bonesetter’s Daughter (2001) and so on. She also has written two children’s books: The Moon Lady (1992) and Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat (1994), which is turned into an animated series airing on PBS. In most of her fiction, the conflicts between parents and children can be seen everywhere, and most of her writing materials derive from her family tradition as well as her personal experience. Amy Tan is a contemporary master, who can move peoples’ souls deeply. The USA Today praised, “There isn’t a writer like Amy Tan who can express the complex almost cruel affection between mother and daughter so deeply. The happiness and sorrows during the life in the book is the reflection of the writer’s experience.” In addition, one of the book reviewer of New York Times Nancy Villa once praised the writing structure of The Bonesetter’s Daughter, who compared it into a carved ivory ball, whose structure is dedicate.

The Bonesetter’s Daughter, published in 2001, is Amy Tan’s fourth novel. Like many of Tan’s work, this novel deals with the relationship between an American-born Chinese daughter and her immigrant mother. Amy Tan said in an interview: “I witnessed many of my close relative deaths in my lifetime. I’ve been thinking about how death affects life and influences things what you believe and pursue. I believe that the late persons drive me to write.” So Amy Tan has a great originality to intertwine the dream and the reality, the past and the future, which depicts the relationship between the three generations vividly. The relationship from conflict to reconciliation reflects the process of cultural exchange between East and West, and the author wanted to tell us the truth: though intercultural communication differences between mothers and daughters, it will ultimately go to harmony with their joint efforts. This is how ethical values of harmony come into being in Amy Tan’s work.

There are few foreign monographs for The Bonesetter’s Daughter studies. The scholar named Carol Cujec analyzes the theme of this story (Excavating Memory, Reconstructing Legacy, 2003). In addition, there are some journals about The Bonesetter’s Daughter, such as “Oh, Mama: Chinese-American Fiction: The Bonesetter’s Daughter” written by Hilary William. Comparatively speaking, domestic studies about the novel tend to be diversified from many perspectives, such as identity theme, mother figure, narrative technique, intercultural perspective and etc., mainly focusing on the discussion of theme represented in the novel. Zou Jianjun focuses his study on ethics in his essay “Harmony: the Crucial Ethical Thought in Amy Tan’s novel. As is known to all, family ethics deals with the relationships among family members, like parents and children, husband and wife, brothers and sisters, including love, marriage, education, individual values and family responsibilities. So I set about exploring the story from family ethics, analyzing the mother-daughter relationship and the Chinese and American culture. To explore aspects of mother-daughter relationships, character images, individual values and identity theme. The essay will analyze the family ethical differences between China and America. The author wants to express her ideal wish for Chinese and American culture to blend together.

This thesis is aimed to analyze the family ethics represented in Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter, focusing on illustrating the predicament of traditional Chinese family ethics in American cultural context and the writer’s reconstruction of the Chinese-American family ethics, and thereby explore the writer’s perceptions on Chinese-American families. This thesis is divided into two parts. The first part discusses contradictions and conflicts, focusing on love and marriage, education, individual values and family responsibilities and analyzes the predicament of traditional Chinese family ethics in American culture. The second part discusses reconciliation and co-existence, focusing on the freedom and equality, mother-daughter relationship, the friendship and sisterhood and identity construction and analyzes the reconstruction of Chinese-American family ethics. The process manifests that the Chinese-American expect the culture of west and east tend to reconciliation, and it is of great significance that the Chinese culture to coexist with American culture and develop in the context of globalization. It is also agreed that the cultural conflicts and reconciliation between mother and daughter creates the charm of The Bonesetter’s Daughter.

2. Demonstration