摘 要

《喜福会》是美国华裔女作家谭恩美的畅销作品，在1989年出版之后就受到了热情洋溢的评价，并且获得了全美图书奖和洛杉矶时代周刊的图书奖。当前国内外对喜福会的解读主要有文化冲突的母女关系，这些解读站在文化交流的高度，很少能够关注女儿们的成长：当母亲身上的中国特性对生长在美国文化环境中的女儿产生影响时，女儿们会何去何从。

本文分为六个部分。第一部分是对作者和《喜福会》的介绍。第二和第三部分论述了女儿们在成长道路上遇到的羁绊，成长道路上得到的指引。第四部分描写她们是如何克服对自己母国文化的偏见，完成和母亲的和解。第五部分探讨了母亲所代表的中国文化是财富还是羁绊。最后一部分是全文的总结，指出《喜福会》这样的小说在现实中对人们成长的借鉴意义。

关键词：成长； 中美文化； 个性； 《喜福会》

Abstract

The Joy Luck Club is American-Chinese writer Amy Tan’s best-selling work. Soon after its publication in 1989, The Joy Luck Club garnered enthusiastic reviews, remaining on the New York Times best-seller list for many months. It won both the National Book Award and the L.A. Times Book Award in 1989.

The current interpretation of The Joy Luck Club mainly includes cultural conflicts and the mother-daughter relationship, these interpretations stand on the height of cultural exchange, and few can involve daughters’ growth: when the Chinese characteristics represented by their mothers affected daughters who lived in the American cultural environment, where should daughters go.

This paper is divided into six parts. The first part is the introduction about the author and the works. The second and third parts discourse the barriers and guidance in the path of growth. The fourth part describes the daughters overcome the bias on Chinese culture and become reconciled with mothers. The fifth part defects whether the Chinese culture is wealth or trammel. The final part is the conclusion of this paper, pointing the significance of The Joy Luck Club in the process of one’s growth.

Key Words: growth; Sino-American Cultures; personality; The Joy Luck Club

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Barriers on Path of Growth — Losing Position between Two Cultures 3

2.1 Divergence between Mothers and Daughters 3

2.2 Divergence between Husbands and Wives 3

3 Leading Daughters’ Road — Helping Build Daughters’ Personality Traits 5

3.1 Chinese Culture Represented by Mothers 5

3.2 American Culture Represented by Husbands 6

4 Insight Moment — Reconciliation of Dual Cultural Identities 8

4.1Gradual Enlightenment —Torture under Chinese Culture 8

4.2Insight Moments—Reconciliation with Mothers 9

5 Inheritance from Mothers — Unique Personalities 11

5.1 Strong Mothers 11

5.2 Wealth or Trammel 12

5.3 Standing on Shoulders of Mothers 12

6 Conclusion 14

References 15

Acknowledgements 16

Impacts of Sino-American Cultural Environment on the Personality:

A Case Study of The Joy Luck Club

1 Introduction

Amy Tan is a prominent Chinese American writer. Her works have a huge impact on American literature. The Joy Luck Club published in 1989, soon garnered enthusiastic reviews, remaining on the New York Times bests-seller list for many months. It won both the National Book Award and the L.A. times Book Award in 1989.

In The Joy Luck Club, the main contents are about the conflicts between mothers and daughters. The Chinese mothers strive to inculcate their American-born daughters with Chinese mode of thinking, they also attempt to make daughters understand the pain they felt as girls growing up in China. The daughters, on the other hand, often regard their mothers’ attempt at guiding them as hypercritical meddling or a failure to understand American culture. Thus the daughters decide to resist their mothers’ assimilation. Both the mothers and the daughters struggle for identity: the mothers try to reconcile their Chinese pasts with their American presents; the daughters attempt to find a balance between independence and loyalty to their heritage.

In recent years, foreign reviews are mainly about ethnic identity, orientalism and multiculturalism, domestic reviews are about culture research, post-colonialism, and feminism. Few are about personality and growth.

The traditional concept of China thinks children should unconditionally follow parents’ words, and Chinese parents seem to identify with this concept deeply. But this concept itself is not correct, it stressed parents of dominant status too much, and ignored children’s thoughts and right. Which easily hinder children’s growth of personality. Moreover, the relationship between parents and children would deteriorate, children become rebellious or claustrophobic. Meanwhile, we can find that western education is better for children’s personality and independence. We cannot deny that there are many conflicts between Chinese traditional culture and western culture, how to find a way to solve the conflicts is difficult. The Joy Luck Club contains sixteen interwoven stories about conflicts between Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters, which is a suitable works to study these conflicts.

2 Barriers on Path of Growth — Losing Position between Two Cultures

2.1 Divergence between Mothers and Daughters

There are confusions and difficulties in the process of one’s growing up, and this confusion and hardship are closely related to the social environment. In The Joy Luck Club four daughters grow up under the influence of American culture, they speak with a standard American English, eat KFC and drink Coca-Cola, fully accepted, praised and respected American culture; on the other hand, the family Education in a large extent is the Chinese style. Living in two cultures’ crevice, the young daughters chose American culture without exception in the race between Chinese and American cultures. Mothers with the concept of Chinese family education loving daughters in their own ways. Suyuan Woo force her June to play the piano, Waverly become the chess champion with the help of her mother. Their practices run into daughters’ revolt. Because the girls already identify themselves as Americans, they take the American culture and values ​​as their standards to judge all the things. Suyuan Woo has reached the end of June’s forbearance by forcing her to practice the piano, “Then I wish I would never been born!” I shouted. “I wish I were dead! Like them.” Waverley yelled to her mother on the street “Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, then why do not you learn to play chess?” Rose learned to choose from the best opinions “Over the years, I learned to choose from the best opinions. Chinese people had Chinese opinions. American people had American opinions. And in almost every case, the American version was much better.” The girls dream of becoming a true member of American society, when choosing a boyfriend, they invariably fall in love with and marry American men.

2.2 Divergence between Husbands and Wives

Daughters live in Chinese families after all, mothers’ words and deeds, the family’s influence, making Chinese elements exist in them inevitably. When they interact with whites as the main mainstream American social, the conflict of two cultures arise.

In The Joy Luck Club Rose’s and Lena’s marriage reflect the conflict vividly. Although Rose stresses that “I am American”, she would be turned away by her white boyfriend’s parents. Despite her obedience to her husband Ted, “I will leave it,” “You decide,” “I do not care” are her most common language, submissive role in marriage makes her lose her judgment. The relationship between her and her husband Ted turns into an obedient relationship with Ted calling the shots, and individualistic Ted does not appreciate Rose’s dedication. Which is entirely due to the different cultural backgrounds. In particular Ted’s view, Obedient to the husband, is not a virtue but the expression of having no personality, which is a native-born American’s unacceptable thing, he cannot stand a soulless wife. Their marriage is full of contradiction and it is dangerous.

 As an independent career woman, Lena seems to be fully accepted the American ideas of freedom, equality and independence before the marriage. After the marriage they still hold the opinion that financial independence means social freedom and absolute control over their own lives, living a life that they never pay for each other on economic. The influence of Chinese traditional culture makes Lena unconsciously give in to her husband. Even though she played a key role in the creation and development of the company, but she is only her husband Harold’s deputy, the remuneration only quite to one-seventh of her husband, in their marriage Lena lost herself, she always dominated by their husbands, to her husband who always take advantage of her and fight over the smallest trifles, she just let him go, there is no happiness at the marriage.

3 Leading Daughters’ Road — Helping Build Daughters’ Personality Traits

3.1 Chinese Culture Represented by Mothers

The development of Personality is not personally finished, everyone will experience some impact from both positive and negative, and the people around them shape daughters’ personality in different ways.

In The Joy Luck Club, two generations of mothers and their daughters living in the caught of two cultures, they suffer gender bias and racial discrimination, and Chinese mothers are incumbent to play the role of leader on the road where daughters grow up. Four mothers from war-torn old Chinese, deeply influenced by Confucian culture, they insist the Chinese family education. During the process they educate and train their daughters, they suffer daughters’ revolt over and over, but they never give up hope, and they care for their daughters. At the critical moment when the girls disorient and do not know where to go at the crossroads of two cultures, mothers no longer keep silent and courageously untie their scars, with their own personal experiences to call disoriented daughters.