Amy Tan's Stereotypes

As the great French writer Voltaire once said, “Writing is the painting of the voice” (Voltaire). By stating this, he insightfully implies that writing can be interpreted and presented in numerous ways that are unique to each individual author. Representing this idea in a purely individual way, writer Amy Tan presented her stories of family and relationships from the rarely demonstrated Chinese-American perspective. Instead of making her stories immediately applicable to a fully white audience, she stayed true to her own story and majorly influenced American literature on the whole. Through her writing, Amy Tan challenged America’s stereotypes of Asian people by examining common relationships between mother and daughter. Born in Oakland,

Rather than producing unoriginal, basic mystery or fantasy novels at the time, Tan was compelled to write from a realist perspective with balanced structure (Amy). She wanted to show what real life was like for Asian characters while simultaneously demonstrating the importance of family (Amy). This can be greatly seen in some of her novels, including The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God's Wife, in which the lives of her and her mom are blatantly expressed (Amy). Unexpectedly this intimate connection to her work increased in importance upon her mother's diagnosis with alzheimer's (Krug). Stepping away from the national spotlight she gained after the success of the Joy Luck Club, Tan dedicated most of her time to caring for her mom during the last few years of her life (Krug). After her passing, Tan felt greatly compelled to write a tribute to her mother in order to think back on her memories and find closure. The Bonesetter’s Daughter was released in 2001 and was vastly important in helping Tan process what had happened as she once said at the time, “I needed closure, which is why I threw myself back into writing" (Ganahl). While her writing was always influenced by her relationship with her mother, it grew to be even more important as time passed and Tan wrote to regain what she had lost. By writing stories about self-identity and connection to family, Amy Tan uniquely utilized a personal connection in her work to provide extra