英語(yǔ)畢業(yè)論文喜福會(huì)joyluckclubconflictsandblendingbetweenAmericanandChineseculture

1、作 者 聲 明我鄭重聲明：本人恪守學(xué)術(shù)道德，崇尚嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)學(xué)風(fēng)。所呈交的學(xué)位論文，是本人在導(dǎo)師的指導(dǎo)下，獨(dú)立進(jìn)行研究工作所取得的結(jié)果。除文中明確注明和引用的內(nèi)容外，本論文不包含任何他人已經(jīng)發(fā)表或撰寫(xiě)過(guò)的內(nèi)容。論文為本人親自撰寫(xiě)，并對(duì)所寫(xiě)內(nèi)容負(fù)責(zé)。論文作者簽名：2011年5月31日題 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 外國(guó)語(yǔ)學(xué)院英語(yǔ)系 專(zhuān)業(yè)班級(jí) 英073 學(xué) 號(hào) 10071510 姓 名 王曉楠院長(zhǎng) 系主任 教學(xué)科研

2、組主任教研組(研究室)主任 指導(dǎo)教師 2011年5月31日課題來(lái)源自 選課題的目的、意義本論文基于美國(guó)和中國(guó)地理、文化等差異對(duì)子女教育的深刻影響，探討了譚恩美的小說(shuō)喜福會(huì)中的文化沖突，分析在文化差異的影響下如何平衡兩種文化、兩代人之間的矛盾。如今，全球化不斷加速，最新調(diào)查顯示亞裔已經(jīng)成為美國(guó)最大移民組成部分，中美不同的教育方式孰優(yōu)孰劣成為議論的焦點(diǎn)。譚恩美在喜福會(huì)中已經(jīng)發(fā)表了自己對(duì)中美文化沖突的一些獨(dú)特見(jiàn)解，今天再來(lái)梳理、解讀她的觀(guān)點(diǎn)，具有一定的實(shí)際價(jià)值和現(xiàn)實(shí)意義。要 求認(rèn)真閱讀小說(shuō)原著，廣泛查找、閱讀參考資料和書(shū)籍，在領(lǐng)會(huì)理解的基礎(chǔ)上形成自己的觀(guān)點(diǎn)，并清晰、有邏輯性地闡釋自己的觀(guān)點(diǎn)。語(yǔ)言正確

3、地道，行文通順流暢。課題主要內(nèi)容及進(jìn)度本論文探討了談恩美小說(shuō)喜福會(huì)中四對(duì)移民母親和美國(guó)化的女兒之間的矛盾背景、矛盾表現(xiàn)、矛盾原因、以及矛盾解決方案。這是探討解決與文化差異有關(guān)的文化沖突的一次頗有意義的嘗試。進(jìn)度： 2011年1月11日1月22日撰寫(xiě)開(kāi)題報(bào)告2011年1月22日交開(kāi)題報(bào)告2011年1月23日3月6日 閱讀、整理文獻(xiàn)2011年3月 7日4月20日 撰寫(xiě)論文初稿2011年4月21日5月31日 修改論文初稿/二稿/定稿等2011年6月 1日6月9日 評(píng)閱及盲審2011年6月10日 論文答辯注：以上各項(xiàng)由指導(dǎo)教師填寫(xiě)Conflict and Blending between Americ

4、an 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 RequirementsFo

5、r 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

6、 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 th

7、is 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

8、 要西方的中國(guó)移民和當(dāng)?shù)厝说拿芎艽蟪潭壬显从跂|西方文化的差異。在小說(shuō)喜福會(huì)中，作者譚恩美在描寫(xiě)母女矛盾時(shí)表達(dá)了不同的文化傳統(tǒng)、意識(shí)形態(tài)等的重要影響作用。在小說(shuō)的結(jié)尾，母女的矛盾化解了，而原因大致可以歸納為：母親與生俱來(lái)的母愛(ài)和有效的溝通交流。如今，全球化加速，不同文化背景的人與人之間的接觸更多了,在這種情況下，尋找一種有效的交流方式就顯得格外重要。在這篇論文中，我將系統(tǒng)地對(duì)小說(shuō)喜福會(huì)進(jìn)行研究分析。母女間矛盾是什么？為什么會(huì)有矛盾？同時(shí)，我將試圖通過(guò)以上分析為文化沖突最終找到合適的解決方法。關(guān)鍵詞：喜福會(huì); 文化; 矛盾; 交流ContentsAbstractI摘 要IIChapter One

9、 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 C

10、onflicts 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 Diffe

11、rent 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 confli

12、cts 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 whic

13、h 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 summa

14、rize 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 trad

15、itions, 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

16、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 America

17、n 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 diffe

18、rs 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 section

19、s, 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

20、 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

21、 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.

22、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 th

23、e 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 s

24、hame 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 mo

25、ther. 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

26、 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

27、 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 gu

28、yYing 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

29、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 he

30、r 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 wi

31、th 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 Chi

32、nese 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

33、 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 o

34、rdinary 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 C

35、lub 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-

36、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,

37、 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

38、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 Chin

39、ese. 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

40、 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 respon

41、sibilities 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 indepe

42、ndent 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

43、 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 is

44、sue. 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

45、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 aversio

46、n 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 comb

47、ination 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

48、. 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 wi

49、th 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 older (The Joy Luck Club p.146)". Besides, he was a white Amer

50、ican, to which she was instinctively offensive as a Chinese-American, who could not really integrate into the mainstream culture. She stuck to the ancient Chinese customs and ideas, and she preferred tea to coffee. When Waverly took her first boyfriend home, with the so-called unique insight her mot

51、her found that he lacked family responsibility, fickle in love, talked big, and did not care about his wife, etc. She even threw shoes to him to show her dislike. However, Waverly could not understand her mother at all. She believed it was her mother who ruined her first marriage, so this time she w

52、as afraid that she might once again destroyed her marriage. For decades, she never understood her mother, and she even mixed up Taiyuan, the birthplace of her mother, with Taiwan, because she had very little knowledge of China, and she herself had been completely westernized. There are some typical

53、details to illustrate it: Firstly, she tried her best to get rid of her mother's interference in the free love. Secondly, she had accepted the Western way of life and cohabited with two boys. Thirdly, she asked her parents to respect her private life, calling her is a must before visiting her ho

54、use. 3.4 Conflicts between Ying Ying Gu and Lena St. ClairThe main conflicts between Ying Ying Gu and her daughter Lena St. Clair is her misunderstanding of Chinese people.On the one hand, she knew little about her mother, and looked down upon her with the prejudice that all of the Chinese are impov

55、erished. For example, in a store, her mother was shouted rudely by others, which made Lena very embarrassed, and she lied to her mother who could not speek English: "Chinese people were not allowed to shop there ( The Joy Luck Club p.106)." On the other hand, she was afraid of Chinese supe

56、rstition. Her mother once told her that her great-grandfather punished a person and suffered retaliation for his deed. Since then, China in her mind had become a pretty savage place, and she even asked her mother: “Did they slice off his skin first? Did they use a cleaver to chop up his bones? Did h

57、e scream and feel all one thousand cuts (The Joy Luck Club p.102)?" Her mother was very angry with her misunderstanding of her great-grandfather. The conflicts varied among four pairs of mothers and daughters. Suyuan Woo expected too much for her daughter, which imposed breathless pressure on h

58、er. An-mei Hsu tried to teach her daughter to be more confident and self-esteemed as a Chinese, however, her daughter felt inferior to those Americans and she always followed her husband's advice without regard to her own personality. The conflict between Lindo Jong and her daughter, who interpreted the so-called maternal love as superfluous action, lied in what was an acceptable degree of interfering with her private affairs. Besides, the daughter was negative to her mother's showing off. Ying Ying Gu's daughter misunderstood the Chinese people with the prejudice that t