Abstract: The Joy Luck Club by Chinese American authoress Amy Tan portrays a negative image of geographic China. The beautiful scenery of Kweilin contrasts with the miserable human life in the war time. The Fen river flood forces the poor to flee their hometown. The shadow play performed beside the Taihu Lake reveals the humiliation and low social status of women. In the grand mansions dominated by Confucian ethics, women suffer from much depression. Kweilin, Fen River, Yangtze River Delta and Chinese traditional architecture are all proud symbols of Chinese civilization. Yet, in Tan's novel, they turn into background to project the image of a miserable, horrible and depressing China. Such a gloomy geographic China forms a sharp contrast with the U.S.A featured by its peaceful and harmonious landscapes. It is evident that although Amy Tan acknowledges her Chinese ethnic identity, the image of China described in The Joy Luck Club caters to the western readers' orientalist imagination about a mysterious and backward China. |
