A Critical Analysis of the Collisions and Integrations between Eastern and Western Cultures in the Joy Luck Club 浅析《喜福会》中东西方文化之间的冲撞与融合文献综述
2020-06-24 19:51:53
Before Chinese American literature has appeared in public view, mainstream culture in the USA focused on American Dream which meant that the public in the USA believed if they worked hard they could earn everything they wanted. Their belief incarnated many compositions like The Great Gatsby and An American Tragedy. After migration waves, Chinese American literature placed impacts on the domestic culture and infiltrated into it. As a part of American literature, what Chinese American literature always embodies are collisions and integrations which both are nourished by American literature and depend on Chinese traditional culture. In the inception,as the marginal culture Chinese American literature was ignored. When conflicts between different ethnic groups were fermented,some writers even defamed Chinese people and our culture in their novels. Other writers like Amy Tan, ambiguity of whose identities always exists, composed their works through impressions which they heard from parents. As China further progresses in the International society, American Chinese literature has developed into a blooming season. Even though these American Chinese writers have gone through plenty of difficulties but they play their roles like a bridge over the Pacific Ocean just like Amy Tan#8217;s description in the Joy Luck Club. In order to consummate my papers, several compositions which I make references to contain almost detailed intents in Amy Tan#8217;s compositions. Who is Amy Tan? This question doesn#8217;t ask for a superficial answer. It involves her background、ancestry etc. Chen Xiaofang and Li Xinde in their papers summarized Amy#8217;s cultural identity. Their passage claimed that it was undeniable that there was a complexity of her growth experience. In order to prove that it was unreasonable to reproach that Amy calumniated Chinese culture and displayed an extravagant Chinese image, three reasons were enumerated. First, they thought her family was unrepresentative . Amy#8217;s mom often committed a suicide during her grown up, which deeply casted a shadow over her. Second, Amy#8217;s mom always had a blind faith in supernatural beings, which made Amy was too sensitive to the surroundings. Third, Amy was totally ignorance of Chinese characters but language and character both lay a foundation for one ethnic group. With going deep into Chinese American literature, ”the third space”, a kind of cultural hybrid mixed with domestic culture and colonial culture, should be viewed in a more object and comprehensive way . Tian Zhuoyan in her article, The Self and The Others: a Study on Chinese Image in the Joy Luck Club, probed into a proper noun, Chinese image, which displayed various differences of two images between Western and Eastern cultures. What Chinese image represents are always introspections about miseries suffered by leading characters and desires for their ego. After researching Amy#8217;s novels, Tian Zhuoyan thought what really matters in her works was love which functioned as a solvent to disputes and disparities. Xu Yan who has published his article mentioned self-interpretation of Chinese descendants in the USA. What I learn from his passage is that women depicted in Amy#8217;s novels are eager to get rid of old memories which tortured them for even the first half of their lives but finally they decide to bear everything in mind to greet a new life. The author emphasized that when the leading characters were ashamed of their behaviors like native Americans they were really shameful. They should be proud of the differences and then they could regain themselves. In another article written by Chen Xuefen, Amy Tan and the orientalism were analyzed, especially the orientalism. The author mainly discussed about rules and regulations of the orientalism. What#8217;s more, Amy#8217;s intents to transcend the orientalism were enumerated in details. Another article I make references to aims at presenting a type of configuration and establishment of Chinese descendants in the USA. The author, Fang Herong, paid close attention to the old society of China and the solitary Chinatown which was filled with the characters#8217; desperation and hopes. He also gave a sentence like a feminist geologist and considered a wind vane in a society to evaluate individual social rights and freedom mostly was related with spatial displacements. One who wanted to cater to the surroundings should take social factors into full consideration. Only in this way can an individual build an appropriate identity. As for Asian American Autobiography and Christianity which is one of my reference documentations, its author, Patricia Marby Harrison, contempt to hold a rational discussion. From his perspective, in Amy#8217;s the Joy Luck Club, Asian American autobiography and the portrayal of Christianity might developed into two results: Genocide or Redemption. ”That this human triumph should happen in the context of a strongly Christian narrative appears to refute emphatically Chin#8217;s charge of the genocide of Asian culture in Asian American autobiographical writing. Christianity has been integral to the formation of some Asian Americans#8217; identity and community.” Since the mid-twentieth century Christianity has ceased to be a primarily assimilative, ”whitening” force for Asian Americans; it has become one way to augment and clarify their position as minorities in North America.