| Summary: | 碩士 === 淡江大學 === 英文學系 === 93 === Anne Tyler’s novels evolve around the theme of the family. Family values are constantly challenged by social changes and by individual members in the family. This thesis focuses on the way Tyler uses the family as a site where the individual contests his or her individuality, while challenging and transgressing the boundaries of the family. In "The Accidental Tourist," Macon, a white middle-class man learns how to break away from his confining “systems” and establishes meaningful relations with strangers. In "Back When We Were Grownups," Rebecca''s belief in keeping the family boundaries open is a response to the crumbling and shattering of the contemporary American nuclear family.
Anne Tyler’s writing is not a grand narrative but rather a series of descriptions in which she portrays the average individuals in their everyday struggles amidst family strife. The family, for Tyler, is a place from which the individuals constantly try to escape from but to which they eventually return.
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