초록 열기/닫기 버튼
A Chinese American, Amy Tan, presents the Chinese American mother/daughter relationship in her fiction, The Bonesetter's Daughter (2001). This fiction introduces two generations of mother/daughter relationships. In the first generation, the mother, Precious Auntie, and the daughter, LuLing, misunderstand each other, and finally, the mother kills herself due to her daughter's betrayal. In the second generation, the mother, LuLing, and the daughter, Ruth, do not understand each other due to their cultural differences and the language barrier. LuLing has symptoms of dementia. Ruth has a problem that she loses her voice regularly and does not establish her own identity as a writer. Ruth does not marry her lover, though they live together, due to her lack of self－esteem and/or their lack of mutual trust and confidence. However, when Ruth reads her mother's life-story which explains her family history, myth and culture, she comes to understand her mother's awkward behaviors and language. As soon as she finds out her own family background and culture, Ruth can solve her problems with her mother as well as her lover. In the end, Ruth establishes her own identity and subjectivity and re-gains her voice psychologically as well as physically. She marries her lover and becomes the author of the book about her own family and herself. As one of the similar patterns of the mother/daughter stories from the mixed cultures, this novel presents the importance of understanding their background culture and tradition in order for the daughters to find their own identity and reconcile with their mothers.
키워드열기/닫기 버튼
Chinese American mother/daughter relationship, cultural differences, language barrier, family history, identity
