1.1 research actuality

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Celeste Ng (1980-) is a one of the most popular author among the contemporary ethnic American writers. Her debut Everything I Never Told You was published in 2014 and became the best-seller of New York Times. Book review of New York Times described Everything I Never Told You as “No one had written this kind of novel before Celeste Ng. This book depicts the burden and pressure of being ‘different’, which could often destroy a man, but not shape a man.” What’s more, it also won Amazon book of the year and be recommended by a lot of media, such as Buzzfeed, Booklist and San Francisco Chronicle. Since the success Everything I Never Told You has achieved, this work is translated into fifteen languages and introduced to over twenty countries. After its publication, it enjoyed an extraordinary popularity in the academic world home and abroad. A lot of thesis, papers and works on the periodicals or magazines are written about the analysis of this work.

Some scholars analyse the reason why Celeste Ng can write such a novel about the race. Referring to the theory of Bhabha Homi K, they claim that Celeste Ng, as an American of Chinese origin is the result of hybridisation and thus can describe the reality of living condition of the Other in the US. .Some pay attention to the interest Celeste Ng shows in her work for racial issue. Some scholars argues that the social reason of Lydia’s death is that her family as the only mixed-race family in the community is isolated and discriminated. Although Lydia is born in the US and she is actually American citizen, in the view of other American, who is the Self in the US society, she is always the Other. The feeling of isolation make it difficult for Lydia to identify herself and make friends. Some scholars focus on the psychological condition of Lydia. For example, in the Journal of Yangtze University(Social Science), Li Runrun and Zhang Huirong have concluded the individual reason of Lydia’s death. They mentioned that the dependent personality of Lydia partly leads to her tragical ending. Some argue that Celeste Ng is a feminist writer. In 1973, the abortion had become the right of a mother which is a great improvement in feminism. In Ng’s novel, the story happens before that improvement. What’s more, Celeste Ng focuses on the relationship between mother and daughter, which is an important issue of feminism. In the novel, there is always conflict between Marilyn and her mother, which is due to her independent ideas.

1.2 research significance

A lot of researches have been written on the analysis of this excellent novel, Everything I Never Told You, as I mentioned above. However, some topic is still missing in this kind of analysis, which is the failure of parental education. The meaning of failure of parental education is not only that parents fail to cultivate their child deliberately, but also that the illiteracy and conservative of parents and the environment parents create have influenced the child. Celeste Ng has mainly described three families in Everything I Never Told You. These three families all turns out to be a failure and has a detrimental influence on the child it cultivates. What’s more, the failure of parental education can conclude all the topics above and make up the storyline of the this novel. So this thesis will focus on the failure of parental education of three families in Everything I Never Told You. We will discover the role that the family plays in the failure of children and understand how this failure will be passed on to the next generation through family education and cultivation.

2. 研究的基本内容与方案

2.1 basic content

Catalogue

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Celeste Ng and Her Works