the cultural conflict and coexistence in the joy luck club【畢業(yè)論文】

1、<p>　　本科畢業(yè)論文(設(shè)計(jì))</p><p>　題 目：The Cultural Conflict and Coexistence in The Joy Luck Club</p><p>　學(xué) 院：</p><p>　學(xué)生姓名：</p><p>　專(zhuān) 業(yè)：英語(yǔ)</p><p>　班

2、 級(jí)：</p><p>　指導(dǎo)教師：</p><p>　起止日期：</p><p><b>　　Contents</b></p><p><b>　　摘要</b></p><p>　　文化的沖突一直是生活在東西方兩種異質(zhì)文化中的美籍華裔作家們體驗(yàn)最為強(qiáng)烈也最為關(guān)注的問(wèn)題之一

3、。1987年，譚恩美根據(jù)外婆和母親的經(jīng)歷，寫(xiě)成了小說(shuō)《喜福會(huì)》。本文的主要內(nèi)容旨在分析《喜福會(huì)》中四對(duì)母女之間存在的文化沖突以及文化沖突產(chǎn)生的原因，探究促使兩種文化共存的方式。</p><p>　　第一部分主要介紹了作者的生平以及《喜福會(huì)》的主要內(nèi)容，并分析了其寫(xiě)作背景。第二部分從以四對(duì)母女的故事為經(jīng)緯，從教育方式、婚姻觀(guān)和價(jià)值觀(guān)，分析了小說(shuō)中中國(guó)母親和美國(guó)化的女兒之間的沖突。第三部分從跨文化的角度分析了兩種不同

4、的文化背景是沖突產(chǎn)生的主要原因，其中涉及到了“邊緣”文化和“東方主義”。東方主義著重體現(xiàn)在兩代人之間的產(chǎn)生的沖突上，母親在封建中國(guó)的苦難經(jīng)歷和從小說(shuō)中的母女關(guān)系中體現(xiàn)的“父權(quán)制”。第四部分主要通過(guò)小說(shuō)中的母女關(guān)系的變化探究?jī)煞N文化從沖突走向融合的方式。這也是小說(shuō)的作者最終想表達(dá)的創(chuàng)作目的，就是借兩代人之間的沖突與共存來(lái)闡明東西方兩種文化也必將從沖突走向共存。母女兩代人從誤解、沖突到溝通和理解，折射著東西方文化互相碰撞、溝通和不同的國(guó)家、

5、民族和文化相互共存應(yīng)采取的態(tài)度-一溝通、理解與尊重。</p><p>　　《喜福會(huì)》體現(xiàn)了不同文化的共存是需要尊重和理解的。愛(ài)和真誠(chéng)永遠(yuǎn)是心靈溝通的橋梁，連接世界的紐帶。</p><p>　　[關(guān)鍵詞]：文化沖突；教育方式；婚姻觀(guān)；價(jià)值觀(guān)；共存</p><p><b>　　Abstract</b></p><p>　　C

6、ultural conflict is always one of the most concerned questions for a lot of Chinese American writers who have been living under the backgrounds of two different cultures. In1987, Amy Tan finished The Joy Luck Club based

7、on the experiences of her grandmother and mother. The main content of this thesis aims to analyze the cultural conflicts between mothers and daughters and the causes of the cultural conflict, and to explore the way of co

8、existence.</p><p>　　The first part mainly introduces the writer, the main content of The Joy Luck Club and the writing background. The second part analyzes the conflicts between Chinese mother and Americaniz

9、ed daughters from three aspects: education style, marriage and the values. The third part analyzes two different cultural backgrounds from the perspective of cross-culture, and it is the main cause of the conflict, which

10、 refers to “edge” culture and “orientalism”. Orientalism focuses on the conflict between two </p><p>　　From The Joy Luck Club we can know that the coexistence of different cultures really needs respects and

11、understanding. The love and faith are always the bridge of the mind, and the link of connecting world.</p><p>　　[Key words]: cultural conflict; education style; marriage value; coexistence</p><p&g

12、t;　　The Cultural Conflict and Coexistence in The Joy Luck Club</p><p>　　Introduction </p><p>　　Amy Tan, a famous Chinese American female writer, was born in Oakland, California in 1952. She star

13、ted writing novels since she was thirty three years old. In 1987, according to the experience of her grandmother and mother, she wrote a novel called The Joy Luck Club, and in 1989, the book was published. The publishing

14、 of the book wins a great success, it continues 40 weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list. The Joy Luck Club was based on the story of four mothers and daughters, vividly desc</p><p>　　My paper aims to

15、 explore and analyze The Joy Luck Club from the perspective of cultural conflict, in order to get the readers to understand this famous book’s deeper meaning. Cultural conflict is always one of the most heated questions

16、for the Chinese American writer who have been living in the east and western cultures. From The Joy Luck Club，we can analyze the cultural conflicts between four Chinese American mothers and daughters and how they solve t

17、hese cultural conflicts so to harmoniously c</p><p>　　Through two months’ efforts in reading, searching, collecting an ambulance of scholar’s and professor’s literature concerning Amy Tan and her The Joy Luc

18、k Club, I create the following essay to summarize the essence of the literature.</p><p>　　1 Overview of The Joy Luck Club and Amy Tan </p><p>　　1.1 Brief Introduction of the Author</p>&l

19、t;p>　　Amy Tan, a famous Chinese-American writer, she was born in California Auckland of the United States in 1952. She grew up and accepted middle and primary school education in California’s Santa Clara. In 1968, she

20、 moved with her mother to Switzerland because of her father’s death, but in 1969, she came back to California into San Jose City College. In 1973, she obtained a master’s degree in linguistics the next year. After her gr

21、aduation, she married Couis De Mattei. Since 1987, she has become ver</p><p>　　1.2 Brief Introduction of the Novel</p><p>　　1.2.1 The Background of the Novel</p><p>　　The Joy Luck C

22、lub is a bestselling novel written by Amy Tan. In 1987, Tan completed The Joy Luck Club based on her mother and grandmother’s experience. When it was published in 1989, it won a lot of writers’ support and love and the b

23、ook’s publishing got a great success, it continued 40 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, sales of 5 million copies, and won the National Book Award. After it was made into a movie, was widely appreciated.</p

24、><p>　　This novel describes the experience of four women from mainland China to the United States before liberation. The four women acquaint themselves with each other by playing mahjong. They became closed fri

25、ends because of their similar experiences. As a mother, each of them has a lot of problems with their daughter. This novel describes the relationship between The Joy Luck Club mothers and daughters, and their cultural co

26、nflicts. It represents the process from misunderstanding, conflicts to unders</p><p>　　1.2.2 The Main Content of the Novel </p><p>　　This novel mainly tells the relationship between four mothers

27、 and daughters. Woman LinDo when she was five years old, LinDo was ordered to be a child bride for a rich family. When she grew up, she had to marry a boy that she had never met, but she was always remembering her mother

28、's words: never forget who you are. On the wedding night, she revolted, and in the next days she used her strategy to get a ticket to Shanghai and left that rich family. A woman who can use trick to change her tragic

29、 li</p><p>　　The second mother and daughter are YingYing and Lena. When YingYing was young, she fell in love with a man who really was infact a playboy. Nearly two years’ painful marriage depressed her sever

30、ely, and finally, she whispered “he took away my youth, love, and ignorance, and I will take away my side only belong to his things...” (Tan, 1989: 108) She drowned their children. This thing was her nightmare, and lasti

31、ng pain. Until she moved to the United States, and married again, she still lived in t</p><p>　　The third woman is named AnMei. Her mother was forced to get out of the home when she was very young. But one d

32、ay, her mother came back because her grandmother was dying. After her grandmother died, she left home with her mother. Finally, her mother died for her dignity, she chose to go to America. Unexpectedly, her daughter, Ros

33、e, also married to a rich family which has been reduced to humble position. So AnMei said to her daughter:“ Fate can’t repeat the cycle in my offspring. Your grandmother</p><p>　　The forth woman is SuYuan, w

34、ho had abandoned a twin daughters because of the war chaos that she had no ability to take care of her children. So she left the children and her all property under the tree, hoping that some kind man can send the childr

35、en to her father. But later she was saved on the way, children lost. After she came to America, she placed her all expectation on her daughter June. June thought that she was just a common girl, and she didn’t know that

36、her mother's real hope was letti</p><p>　　2 Cultural Conflicts Between Mothers and Daughters </p><p>　　2.1 Different View on Love and Marriage </p><p>　　The first and fourth par

37、t of the novel talks about four mothers’ stories. In these stories, they recall their experiences in Chinese feudal society. From these stories, we can see a lot of characteristics and abuses of feudal society’s marriage

38、. The story starts by the June who is sitting in the eastern of mahjong table. In the novel, Amy Tan means to put the beginning of the story in a prominent place, in which the east implication is very profound. Because t

39、he east is the beginning, the east i</p><p>　　2.2 Different Views on Value</p><p>　　In The Joy Luck Club, there are two kinds of context backgrounds, one is High Context Culture, and another is

40、Low Context Culture. In the High Context Culture, people always have the same experiences and information channels, and they can understand each other without much expression, because the same knowledge background can ma

41、ke them easier to understand each other. The High Context Culture usually has a long history, which changes slowly, and the mothers in The Joy Luck Club just lived in thi</p><p>　　In the High Context Culture

42、, people have close contact, and it pays attention to the strength of the collective. One’s ability is not often reflected in his personal value, but a value of the collective which he belongs to. So the mothers hope to

43、realize their own life value through to their daughters and they regarded daughters’ success as a family’s honor. But the daughters deliberately believed that they are just themselves and they could not understood, even

44、hated and distorted mothers’ odd </p><p>　　2.3 Different Ways of Education</p><p>　　The second and the third part of the novel are the stories of daughters. They were born in the United States,

45、and grew in the United States. Mothers always have great expectation on them, be strict to them. This kind of education style that acquisitions are more than praise made their daughters rebelled. However, with the maturi

46、ng process, the daughters finally express understanding for their mothers. The heroine of the novel finally understands that “Chinese mother never praise daughter in fron</p><p>　　This kind of education styl

47、e which mingled with the mothers’ experiences and strict discipline on daughters is completely opposite to American free-style education. American education means deflection in liberty, democracy, let the children freely

48、 develop. Under these two kinds of education background, it is inevitable to produce conflicts, that is, it must produce conflicts between mother and daughter. In this different education background, I think we should re

49、ject the dross and assimilate the</p><p>　　3 The Causes of Conflict Between Two Cultures </p><p>　　3.1 Different Culture Backgrounds </p><p>　　3.1.1 “Edge” Culture</p><p&

50、gt;　　The cultural conflict and integration is one of the thorny problems for those Chinese American writers who live in two different culture backgrounds, namely American “mainstream” culture and national “edge” culture.

51、 Chinese American writer Amy Tan is just one of a classical example. She stood at the cross of two different kinds of culture, and interpreted the individual and the family experience in the context of historical and cul

52、tural development process. She can not only see two cultural cont</p><p>　　No matter the old immigrants who have been living in America for several years or the overseas Chinese who have moved to America sin

53、ce twentieth century. General Chinese family always ask their children to learn and accept the Chinese traditional culture and customs, so as to maintain contact with the motherland. A new generation of Chinese children,

54、 living with their parents in different cultural environment, influenced by American culture, readings English books, rather than the classic Confuc</p><p>　　3.1.2 Brief Introduction of Orientalism</p>

55、<p>　　The Orientalist has already constructed a set of academic institutions in learning the Orient which produce the beliefs and thoughts called Orientalism. Thousands of Westerners are attracted to and satisfied

56、 with Tan’s depiction of China and Chinese in her The Joy Luck Club. However, ironically, Amy Tan never feels comfortable with her Chinese heritage. Living in America, Tan can hardly avoid the influence of Orientalism im

57、posed by the mainstream society. Amy Tan's Chinese name is AnMei, which m</p><p>　　3.2 The Conflicts Between Two Generations </p><p>　　3.2.1 Traumatic Experiences of the Mothers in Feudal Ch

58、ina</p><p>　　In traditional Chinese feudal society，a woman is identified through her role in a traditional relationship. She must inhabit a identity that has been codified by the severely patriarchal culture

59、，in which the standard for judging women was whether or not they were passive and silent as daughters, wives and mothers.</p><p>　　LinDo is the protagonist of The Joy Luck Club. In light of the society she g

60、rew up in. She had tried to be “a good girl”. To be an obedient daughter, to keep her parents’ promise, LinDo once sacrificed her life. At the age of two, LinDo was betrothed to the Huang family’s son-Tyan-yu, a spoiled

61、boy one year younger than LinDo. After that, LinDo said:“ my own family began treating me as if I belong to somebody else.”(Tan, 1989: 49) Instead of feeling hurt and irritated by the family’s mistreatmen</p><

62、p>　　Later, on the day of the Festival of Pure Brightness, LinDo carried out a plan to set herself free from her miserable marriage without breaking her promise to her family. She made the Huangd believe that Tyan-yu w

63、ould die if he stayed in his marriage with LinDo, and that the pregnant servant girl had Tyan-yu’s seed planted in her womb and was his true spiritual wife. In this way, LinDo cunningly made the Huangs think that it was

64、their ideas to get rid of her, to say that the marriage contract wa</p><p>　　3.2.2 Omnipresence of Patriarchy </p><p>　　The daughters, despite their American birth, are by no means immune to gen

65、der discrimination although the American patriarchal society seems nowhere near as brutal as the Chinese society in which their mothers lived until middle age. Nonetheless in both cases, as Philipa Kafka rightly points o

66、ut, “The men whom both generations encounter have made the rules for their own advantage and for women’s oppression.”(Philipa, 1997: 19) In The Joy Luck Club, Rose has developed a relationship with Ted who </p>&l

67、t;p>　　The five-year marriage of Lena, YingYing’s daughter has brought her more and bitterness than satisfaction and happiness. By mutual consent, Lena’s relationship with her husband Harold both at home and at work is

68、 such that they can “eliminate false dependencies...be equals...love without obligations.”(Tan, 1989: 178) This, however, appears to be a healthy equality based on economic independence and emotional mutuality but is rea

69、lly male dominance and exploitation in disguise. Lena feels that she </p><p>　　4 Researches on Ways of Coexistence in Face of Conflicts Existing in The Joy Luck Club</p><p>　　4.1 Communication B

70、etween Mothers and Daughters</p><p>　　Mothers are not only best friends but also are enemies who spent a lifetime comparing their children with other children. They compete with each other on the daughter’s

71、success, but the way they express it is indirect. “She brings home too many trophy,” (Tan, 1989: 148) said by LinDo and the tone is always lamented. “All day she plays chess. All day I have no time to do anything but dus

72、t off her winnings.”(Tan, 1989: 148) She threw a scolding look at Waverly, who pretended not to see her. “You l</p><p>　　Cherishing the dream that June may one day become a prodigy, SuYuan asks June to play

73、piano every day. But her daughter’s response is extremely out of her expectation. “Why don’t you like me the way I am? I’m not a genius! I can’ play the piano. And even if I could, I wouldn’t go on TV if you paid me a mi

74、llion dollars!” “Who ask you be genius?” She shouted.” “Only ask you be your best. For you sake.” “So ungrateful,” I heard her mutter in Chinese. “If she had a much talent as she has temper, she</p><p>　　4.2

75、 Mutual Understanding and Respect for Foreign Cultures</p><p>　　All of Tan’s works based on the stories between the two or more generations, the two continents or the two cultures. In reading Tan, we find ou

76、rselves travelled across the Pacific Ocean from the daughters’ Americanized world to the world of China which seems more fantastic and dreamlike than real. She incorporates the historical events into common people’s live

77、s, which makes these events more true to life. A review in Publishers’ Weekly mentions “the pleasure of Tan’s seductive prose” and the Fo</p><p>　　4.3 Seeking Common Points While Reserving Differences</p&

78、gt;<p>　　June finally understands the implicit care and love of Chinese style, knows the meanings of the “bag” which is a jade gold necklace that her mother send to her, so she finally decides to return to Shangha

79、i to meet her twin sister for consoling her mother’s soul; Rose, a girl who has no definite view , although usually make the mother’s words as water off a duck’s back, when her marriage has problems, she find that Americ

80、an idea also have serious defect, because there are a variety of choices, it</p><p>　　Conclusion</p><p>　　Amy Tan’s masterpiece The Joy Luck Club, attracts so many attentions. Many professors an

81、d scholars have done researches on it from various perspectives. This paper, choose to analyze the masterpiece from the perspective of cultural conflict and coexistence. Through the discussion of main characters on The J

82、oy Luck Club, we can find that the Chinese American immigrants mostly live in more than two kinds of different cultures, they can not only inherit their traditional value, but also learn to su</p><p>　　Amy T

83、an，the author herself, as an immigrant living in the Chinese and American culture are deeply influenced by them. The Joy Luck Club just based on her mother’s personal experience. Through the analysis of The Joy Luck Club

84、, we can understand well that communication and understanding and love are the keys to make two or more different kinds of cultures coexist harmoniously.</p><p>　　References</p><p>　　Edward, S.

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