Abstract
Amy Tan’s first novel The Joy Luck Club is one of the few books by Chinese American writers that get a great success in the western mainstream society. It presents the details of Chinese immigrant life and Chinese culture elements to the readers, and brings the western attention to the Chinese-American group who are being gradually neglected.
This thesis mainly analyzes the changes of the mother-daughter relationship and their emotional entanglement, which experience five different stages including mother-daughter mutual denial, rebellion, silence, acceptance and final reconciliation. It also tries to explain the cultural causes of these changes. It can be found that cultural differences and conflicts will eventually end with cultural fusion through cultural exchanges.
There are five parts in this thesis. The first part gives a brief introduction to the author and The Joy Luck Club as well as the critical response of the novel. Then it explores the mother-daughter mutual identity denial, mothers’ obsession to Chinese culture and daughters’ obsession to American culture. Next, it analyzes the causes why mothers and daughters misunderstand each other. The fourth part studies the mother-daughter conflicts and reconciliation and try to find some details to explain the reasons. Finally, it concludes that cultural difference is the most powerful thing that determines the mother-daughter relationship changes.
Key words: The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan, mother-daughter relationship, cultural conflicts, cultural fusion
，英语论文，英语论文范文 |
