喜福会joyluckclubconflictsandblendingbetweenAmericanandChineseculture英语毕业论文.doc

作 者 声 明我郑重声明：本人恪守学术道德，崇尚严谨学风。所呈交的学位论文，是本人在导师的指导下，独立进行研究工作所取得的结果。除文中明确注明和引用的内容外，本论文不包含任何他人已经发表或撰写过的内容。论文为本人亲自撰写，并对所写内容负责。论文作者签名：2011年5月31日题 目 Conflict and Blending between American Daughters and Their Chinese Mothers 2011年3月7日 至 2011年5月31日 共 13 周 院 系 外国语学院英语系 专业班级 英073 学 号 10071510 姓 名 王晓楠院长 系主任 教学科研组主任教研组(研究室)主任 指导教师 2011年5月31日课题来源自 选课题的目的、意义本论文基于美国和中国地理、文化等差异对子女教育的深刻影响，探讨了谭恩美的小说喜福会中的文化冲突，分析在文化差异的影响下如何平衡两种文化、两代人之间的矛盾。如今，全球化不断加速，最新调查显示亚裔已经成为美国最大移民组成部分，中美不同的教育方式孰优孰劣成为议论的焦点。谭恩美在喜福会中已经发表了自己对中美文化冲突的一些独特见解，今天再来梳理、解读她的观点，具有一定的实际价值和现实意义。要 求认真阅读小说原著，广泛查找、阅读参考资料和书籍，在领会理解的基础上形成自己的观点，并清晰、有逻辑性地阐释自己的观点。语言正确地道，行文通顺流畅。课题主要内容及进度本论文探讨了谈恩美小说喜福会中四对移民母亲和美国化的女儿之间的矛盾背景、矛盾表现、矛盾原因、以及矛盾解决方案。这是探讨解决与文化差异有关的文化冲突的一次颇有意义的尝试。进度： 2011年1月11日1月22日撰写开题报告2011年1月22日交开题报告2011年1月23日3月6日 阅读、整理文献2011年3月 7日4月20日 撰写论文初稿2011年4月21日5月31日 修改论文初稿/二稿/定稿等2011年6月 1日6月9日 评阅及盲审2011年6月10日 论文答辩注：以上各项由指导教师填写Conflict and Blending between American daughters and Their Chinese MothersA Study of Amy Tans The Joy Luck ClubBy Wang XiaonanUnder the Supervision of Assoc. Prof. Chen LiA Thesis Submitted toThe English Department of School of Foreign LanguagesEast China University of Science and TechnologyIn Partial Fulfillment of the RequirementsFor the Degree of Bachelor of ArtsJune 2011AbstractDifference between Chinese and Western cultures has always been a main source of conflict between local people and citizens of Chinese origin. In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan describes the conflicts between the mothers and daughters to show us different culture traditions, perceptions of life, etc. between American and Chinese culture. In the end, the two different cultures merge together. Nowadays, with the development of globalization, more contacts require an effective way of communication to narrow the gap between different cultures. So, in this thesis, through systematic study of The Joy Luck Club by analyzing what are the conflicts, and why they have conflicts, the author would like to dissect the main reasons of cultural conflicts and find proper ways in blending cultures.Keywords: The Joy Luck Club; Culture; Conflicts; Communication摘 要西方的中国移民和当地人的矛盾很大程度上源于东西方文化的差异。在小说喜福会中，作者谭恩美在描写母女矛盾时表达了不同的文化传统、意识形态等的重要影响作用。在小说的结尾，母女的矛盾化解了，而原因大致可以归纳为：母亲与生俱来的母爱和有效的沟通交流。如今，全球化加速，不同文化背景的人与人之间的接触更多了,在这种情况下，寻找一种有效的交流方式就显得格外重要。在这篇论文中，我将系统地对小说喜福会进行研究分析。母女间矛盾是什么？为什么会有矛盾？同时，我将试图通过以上分析为文化冲突最终找到合适的解决方法。关键词：喜福会; 文化; 矛盾; 交流ContentsAbstractI摘 要IIChapter One Introduction1Chapter Two The Mothers' Sufferings22.1 The Sufferings of June Woo's Mother -Suyuan Woo22.2 The Sufferings of Rose's Mother -An-mei Hsu22.3 The Sufferings of Waverly's Mother -Lindo Jong22.4 The Sufferings of Lena's Mother -Ying Ying Gu3Chapter Three Conflicts43.1 Conflicts between Suyuan Woo and June43.2 Conflicts between An-mei Hsu and Rose53.3 Conflicts between Lindo Jong and Waverly63.4 Conflicts between Ying Ying Gu and Lena St. Clair6Chapter Four Causes of the Conflicts84.1 Different Forms of Social Organization84.2 Different Natural Conditions94.3 Different Ways of Expression10Chapter Five Blending125.1 Maternal Love in The Joy Luck Club125.2 Dialogue and Effective Communication in The Joy Luck Club13Chapter Six Conclusion15Bibliography16Acknowledgements17Chapter One Introduction The Joy Luck Club (1989) was written by Amy Tan. It tells the conflicts and blending of four pairs of mothers of China origin and daughters who grew up in America. The mothers start a club known as "the Joy Luck Club," playing the Chinese game - mahjong for fun. This book has four parts divided into four sections creating sixteen chapters. This thesis which consists of six main chapters, will analyze the conflicts and blending between American and Chinese cultures in The Joy Luck Club. In the first chapter, I will briefly introduce the relationship networks and the main experience in China of the immigrant mothers. In the second chapter, I will summarize the conflicts between mothers and daughters respectively with the following key words: expectation, confidence, interference, and misunderstanding. In the following chapter, I'd like to analyze the reasons of the conflicts between mothers and daughters, including the different cultural traditions, different natural conditions, different social organization, and different ways of expression. In the last but one chapter, the way how they confront the conflicts and get along with each other finally will be my focus. In the last chapter, I will make a summary.The reason why I choose this novel and this topic is on the one hand, with the globalization going far and fast, nowadays more and more people get the chance to live abroad. According to the latest figure release of the "2011 American Study of Population Dynamics" the Chinese Americans become the largest Asian American ethnic groups, and in the past 10 years, Chinese-American population increased by one third. So I believe my thesis has a realistic significance when more and more Chinese come across culture shocks in the foreign countries. On the other hand, the style of education between China and America differs a lot. My thesis also tries to summarize the solutions in solving the conflicts which are offered by the author by analyzing the specific conflicts of four pairs of mothers and daughters in the novel.Chapter Two The Mothers' SufferingsThe novel has a balanced structure. There are four sections, and four tales within each section. To make my thesis easy to follow, Id like to introduce the sufferings of the four mothers first, which actually lay the foundation for some of the conflicts and the flows of the plots.2.1 The Sufferings of June Woo's Mother -Suyuan WooJune Woo's Chinese name was Jing-mei Woo, and she was an unmarried writer who decided to travel to China to meet the halfsisters she had never knownSuyuan Woo was her motherDuring the World War , Suyuan took the kids to Guangxi to seek safer shelter, where she and the other three women organized a Joy Luck Club which relieved them of cares and worries. Before long news came that the Japanese army would invade Kweilin, and then Suyuan Woo had to flee to Chongqing with her twin daughters with no vehicles at all. However she was so exhausted that she dropped her twin daughters on the side of the road desperately. Fortunately, she had a narrow escape with the help of an American missionary, who took her to the hospital, in which she met Luning Woo and married him in America. 2.2 The Sufferings of Rose's Mother -An-mei HsuAn-mei Hsu was the mother of RoseShe was the last of four best friends，who came to the US after seeing her own mother become the mistreated 4th wife of an abusive Chinese businessman. When she was young, she was forced to follow her mother as a concubine to Tianjin from Ningbo. Under the old rule of patriarchal ideology in Chinese society, if a woman remarried, it would be a great shame to her and her family. Therefore, her mother's status in the mansion was much lower than the other three wives. An-mei Hsu deeply felt the pain of living off others. Although finally she was relieved of jealousy and struggle of the large house, the free was at the cost of the life of her mother. 2.3 The Sufferings of Waverly's Mother -Lindo JongWaverly was a divorced accountant and she had a new boyfriend, Rich. Lindo was her mother. She came to the United States after having escaped from a horrible arranged marriage with a 10-years-old boy when she was 13She lived in the north of China, where they had suffered natural disasters for several years, so her parents had to let her get married early, while the other family members got away from the famine-stricken area. Lindo Jong married a useless rich kid by a matchmaker. Unfortunately, she was not in that family a hostess, but a child bride, suffering a variety of insults. In order to preserve the secrets-sexual dysfunction-of their son, her parents-in-law gave money and set her free.2.4 The Sufferings of Lena's Mother -Ying Ying GuLena was a depressed and newly married woman whose husband, Harold, was an American guyYing Ying, mother of Lena, was Suyuan's another friend who came to the United States after having been married to a cruel Chinese manYing Ying Gu came from a prosperous family. Her husband was a playboy, and gave her such great physical and psychological damage that she killed her unborn child in desperation, and departed from her husband until he had died. Later, she married an American soldier and began a new life. Chapter Three Conflicts 3.1 Conflicts between Suyuan Woo and JuneThe main conflict between Suyuan Woo and her daughter lies in that the mother had too much expectation for her daughter, while the daughter could not stand the great pressure.I extract the following two typical paragraphs to illustrate it: "You could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get good retirement. You could buy a house with almost no money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous." (The Joy Luck Club p.132) “Of course you can be prodigy. You can be best anything." (The Joy Luck Club p.132)Suyuan Woo hoped that her daughter could live up to her expectations. Her daughter becoming a Chinese Shirley Temple was her first dream. She took her daughter to the image design salon, but unfortunately, it didn't work. Later she began to find other gifts from her daughter, every night she tried to find her daughters extraordinary character from the old magazines abandoned by others. When these failed, Suyuan wanted to shape her daughter to be a famous pianist, although she was too poor to afford a piano. Finally she managed to do some cleaning for a retired piano teacher and got the opportunity for her daughter. But her daughter was not pleased; she wanted to be herself, to be an ordinary person. She defied her mother many times. We could read her grievance from the following paragraph: "Why don't you like me the way I am? I am not a genius! I can't play the piano. And even if I could, I wouldn't go on TV if you pay me a million dollars!" (The Joy Luck Club p.136) In the traditional Chinese culture, parents wanted the best for their children. They believed that children's success was their success, and they would be very proud. The parents had the right to arrange their life, future and marriage, and children had to respect their parents. Jing-mei Woo was looking forward to the freedom of the Western way of life, while her mother insisted to impose the tradition on her. "Only the obedient daughter can stay in this house (The Joy Luck Club p.100)." But her daughter did not think so, she believed she was not a slave to her mother, and this was not China, she had the right to enjoy as much democracy and equality as other white children. After the Piano conflicts, their different modes of thinking caused by different cultural background had lasted for twenty years. They lived with their own values, until Jing-mei came back to China, when she began to understand her mother.3.2 Conflicts between An-mei Hsu and RoseThe main conflict between An-mei Hsu and her daughter lies in confidence. The mother tended to be more confident and self-esteemed as a Chinese. The daughter, however, suffered a sense of inferiority being a Chinese. She disdained the Chinese wisdom and always neglected her mothers opinions. Rose never believed in her own ideas, so whenever her American husband asked for her opinion, she would reply, “You decide,” or “I dont care,” or “Either way is fine with me.” with the belief that Chinese people had the views of the Chinese people; Americans had the views of Americans; the latter seemed to be better than the former. However, her husband Ted was not happy with this. He criticized that refusing to make decisions meant firstly she had no personality, and secondly she would shoulder none of the responsibilities to avoid any blame. Her mother An-mei Hsu had experienced a miserable childhood, she hoped to educate her daughter with her own lesson. When she was young, she was very timid and dependent on her stepfather, and it was her mothers death that awakened her, and then she noticed being independent with great courage counts more and refusing to be dictated by others would win more respect from others. So An-mei told Rose that she should stand up bravely and learn to control the destiny of her own marriage. Besides, being a Chinese was not a shame, and each man was irreplaceable. But Rose turned a deaf ear to her at the beginning. With this prejudice to Chinese, when Roses marriage came across difficulties, she preferred to confide them to her friends, and even a psychiatrist rather than her mother, which made her mother very sad and depressed. And they had a heat quarrel on this issue. Although at first, Rose looked down upon her mothers opinion and would not take her advice into consideration. But in the end, fortunately, Rose adopted her mothers advice. She made her first own decision during her marriage span and refused to sign the divorce agreement. It was a big shock to Ted, and he discovered Roses personality and confidence from her rejection and decided not to divorce her.3.3 Conflicts between Lindo Jong and WaverlyThe main conflict between Lindo Jong and her daughter first lies in showing off her daughter's achievements to others, which brought great aversion to her daughter. And the second one is what is the proper degree of interfering childrens private affairs. To get rid of the torture of old China, Lindo came to the United States to seek a better material life, and more opportunities for her kids. Lindo Jong hoped her children to be a perfect combination and she never expected that blending was impossible. Lindo Jong hoped that her daughter could be outstanding, and she tried to train her daughter to be a chess master. Proud of her daughter's achievements, she often showed it off to the outsiders, which brought strong aversion to Waverly. After a heated quarrel, their relationship began to tense up. Although after the "Chess Conflicts" Lindo Jong did not intervene in her daughter's life directly, still in her daughter's marriage, she would not stand by. In the Chinese tradition, parents have rights to interfere with this matter for the good of their kids. When Lindo Jong knew that Waverly was older than her boyfriend, she felt negative to him because there was a Chinese saying "would rather find a male ten years older to female one year