英語本科畢業(yè)論文-從《喜福會(huì)》透視中美文化沖突與融合

1、<p><b>　　.</b></p><p><b>　　本科畢業(yè)論文</b></p><p><b>　　從《喜福會(huì)》透視</b></p><p><b>　　中美文化沖突與融合</b></p><p>　　學(xué)生姓名： &l

2、t;/p><p>　　學(xué)生學(xué)號(hào)： 200321037014 </p><p>　　院（系）： 外 國 語 學(xué) 院 </p><p>　　年級(jí)專業(yè)： 2003級(jí)英語本科5班</p><p><b>　　指導(dǎo)教師： </b></p><p><b>　　二〇〇七年五月

3、</b></p><p>　　The Cultural Conflicts and Blending Embodied in the Joy Luck Club</p><p>　　Fang Xiaowen</p><p>　　Under the Supervision of </p><p><b>　　Yuan Bi

4、n</b></p><p>　　School of Foreign Languages and Cultures </p><p>　　Panzhihua University</p><p><b>　　May 2007</b></p><p><b>　　Contents</b>&l

5、t;/p><p>　　Abstract..........................……..……………………………………...…………..………I</p><p>　　Key Words……………….....……………………………………………………..……...I</p><p>　　摘要......................................

6、.............................................................................................Ⅱ</p><p>　　關(guān)鍵詞....................................................................................................

7、.........................................Ⅱ</p><p>　　Introduction………………………………………………………………..…….……..1</p><p>　　I. Amy Tan and Her Novel The Joy Luck Club............................................

8、...............2</p><p>　?、?The Conflicts Between American and Chinese Cultures Embodied in the Novel…3</p><p>　　Ⅲ. The Cultural Understanding and Blending …………………………………………..6</p><p&g

9、t;　　Ⅳ. A Correct Attitude Towards Culture………………………………………………...7</p><p>　　Conclusion……………………………………………………………….……….…..10</p><p>　　Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………...11</p><p>

10、　　Bibliography……………………………………………………………….…...…….12</p><p><b>　　Abstract</b></p><p>　　The Joy Luck Club is the first novel of Amy Tan，a famous Chinese-American writer. In the novel she

11、mainly describes the relationship between the Joy Luck Club mothers and their daughters and cultural conflicts. The novel is set in the age of globalization and in the multicultural American society; it represents the pr

12、ocess of misunderstanding, conflicts, understanding and blending between the mothers and the daughters. Globalization not only brings many chances to china but also brings cultural </p><p><b>　　Key Wor

13、ds</b></p><p>　　The Joy Luck Club; conflict; understanding; cultural blending</p><p><b>　　摘　要</b></p><p>　　《喜福會(huì)》是著名美國籍華裔女作家譚恩美的處女作，作者在小說中主要描述了四對(duì)移民母女的關(guān)系和她們之間由于文化的差異

14、而引起的沖突，小說以全球化時(shí)代和美國多元文化社會(huì)為背景，呈現(xiàn)了4對(duì)母女由誤會(huì)，沖突到理解的過程。在全球化環(huán)境下中國面臨很多發(fā)展的機(jī)遇，但更多的是文化的挑戰(zhàn)。隨著全球化的加劇，中國文化面臨一種被融化，被改變的危險(xiǎn)。本文通過對(duì)《喜福會(huì)》文本及其所透視出的文化沖突與融合的分析，說明在全球化環(huán)境中，應(yīng)該在不同文化中找到一個(gè)平衡點(diǎn)，并以正確的態(tài)度來對(duì)待文化沖突，同時(shí)不要輕易否定母文化，在向全世界學(xué)習(xí)其他優(yōu)秀文化的時(shí)候，也要向他們傳播中國傳統(tǒng)文化。

15、</p><p><b>　　關(guān)鍵詞</b></p><p>　　《喜福會(huì)》；沖突；理解；文化融合</p><p>　　Introduction</p><p>　　In the novel The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan explores the relationship between moth

16、ers and daughters. There are 4 mother-daughter pairs in the novel, mothers are the first generation immigrants, and the daughters are born in America. The Joy Luck Club mothers come from the Chinese traditional families

17、when the dictatorial Chinese power is destroyed by the Japanese insurgents in the 1940s. They escape from the political upheaval of China, but they don't forget their Chinese traditional culture, while </p>&l

18、t;p>　　In the context of globalization, China faces many chances to develop its economic power; meanwhile it faces more challenges to its traditional culture. With the development of China's economic power, China p

19、lays a more important role in the world. The communication with other countries and areas whose cultural backgrounds are totally different from China's is increasing rapidly. This paper, through the exploration of Th

20、e Joy Luck Club, mainly discusses the cultural conflicts, understanding and i</p><p>　　I．Amy Tan and Her Novel The Joy Luck Club</p><p>　　Amy Tan was born in Oakland, California. Both of her par

21、ents were Chinese immigrants. Her father, John Tan, was an electrical engineer and Baptist minister. In China, her mother Daisy had divorced an abusive husband but lost custody of her three daughters. She was forced to l

22、eave them behind when she escaped on the last boat to leave Shanghai in 1949. Her marriage to John Tan produced three children, Amy and her two brothers. Amy Tan’s family is a typical immigrant family, her parents are th

23、e fi</p><p>　　She has experienced the same kind of conflicts which she portrayed in the novel. She and her mother were in constant conflict when she finished the high school in Switzerland. She and her mothe

24、r didn’t speak for six moths after Amy Tan left the Baptist College her mother chose for her to follow her boyfriend to San Jose City College. Tan further defied her mother by abandoning the pre-med course her mother had

25、 urged her to pursue the study of English and linguistics. </p><p>　　In the novel, Jing-Mei abandoned studying piano her mother hoped her to study, because she was allergic to her mother’s arrangement for he

26、r. Amy Tan and the daughters in the novel have something in common. They are the second-generation immigrants. But the mothers, as the first generation immigrants, they don’t totally integrate in the American culture. Th

27、ey cannot speak English with fluency. They never discard the tradition and never forget their lives in China.</p><p>　　They show their love for their daughters by planning the daughters’ future and interferi

28、ng in their activities. To the mothers, they have the compulsory and responsibility to train their daughters to become perfect persons. They want to make their daughters combine the “American Context” with “Chinese Perso

29、nality” perfectly. Their daughters, however, are often born and grow up in America, and are deeply affected by the American moral standard and acting principles. They cherish their independent</p><p>　　But t

30、he novel doesn’t end with the conflicts; instead, in the process of growing up they understand their mothers’ love and the cultural reasons of the conflicts between themselves and their mothers in a deeper level. Therefo

31、re, at the end of the novel, the reconciliation between mothers and daughters forms naturally. Jing-Mei takes her mother’s place to travel back to China which proves the understanding between the two generations.</p&g

32、t;<p>　　When Amy Tan embarked on her new career her mother was ill, she promised herself that if her mother recovered, she would take her mother to China, to see the daughters who have been left behind almost fort

33、y years ago, Mrs. Tan recovered and they departed for China in 1987. The trip was a revelation for Tan, and it gave her a new perspective of her often-difficult relationship with her mother.</p><p>　?、? The

34、Conflicts Between American and Chinese Cultures</p><p>　　Embodied in the Novel </p><p>　　The Joy Luck Club presents many conflicts in the mother-daughter relationship. The conflicts are embodied

35、 in 3 aspects. First, the mothers and thedaughters are in different cultural backgrounds, and the daughters cannot understand their mothers. At the beginning, Jing-Mei fears that she cannot tell her mother’s story to her

36、 half-sisters, which, in fact, reflects the fear of other daughters of the Joy Luck Club members. They have identified themselves with Americans. Jing-Mei’s fear also reflect</p><p>　　The mothers in the The

37、 Joy Luck Club hope that their daughters can get close to them as they were so close to their own mothers in China. For instance, Am-mei’s Popo tells her that her mother is a ghost to make Am-mei forget her mother. Altho

38、ugh Am-mei hasn’t seen her mother for years, she gets to love her mother when her mother combs her hair, and all these things they do are as natural as they do them everyday. And Am-mei says,“This is how a daughter loves

39、 her mother. It is so deep it is in yo</p><p>　　But in America, children always do not follow all that their parents tell them and behave what they want to. They emphases their individuality and do not think

40、 they have so deep relationship with their mothers. So when Lindo asks her daughter Waverly to finish her coffee, Waverly says:“Don’t be so old fashioned, Ma. I’m my own person.”(Tan 227) However, Lindo thinks she is alw

41、ays beside her daughter, and she never gives her daughter up. </p><p>　　Perhaps Lindo experiences the largest crisis of cultural identity among the characters. She regrets having given Waverly the American

42、context, at the same time, given her Chinese character, but the two can never be combined. In the story of “Double Face”, Lindo says: </p><p>　　“… I wanted my children to have the best combination: American

43、circumstance and Chinese character. How could I know these two things do not mix? I taught [my daughter] how American circumstance work: If you are born poor here, it’s no lasting shame…In America, nobody says you have t

44、o keep the circumstances somebody else gives you. She learnt these things, but I couldn’t teach her about Chinese character… How not to show your own thoughts, to put your feelings behind your face so you can take adv<

45、;/p><p>　　She thinks since she gives her daughter the American name (the name of the road they live in), she lets her daughter be too American, and this becomes the barrier between them. But at the same time, s

46、he realizes the American character in herself. She knows that she is no longer Chinese. When she travels to China, the Chinese treat her as an oversea traveler. She is very sad, and she wonders, in the process of changin

47、g herself, what she has lost. Her strategies of concealing inner powers is like </p><p>　　Second, in the novel, the communication problems also arise because the mothers are from China, while daughters are b

48、orn in the United States, their cultural backgrounds are different, and also because they speak different languages. For example, June says, “My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other’

49、s meaning and I seemed to hear less than was said, while my mother heard more.”(Tan 27)June looks for meanings in what is stated and does not understand that her m</p><p>　　Another example is that Rose canno

50、t find the right English terms to meet with “Hulihudu” and “Heimongmong”. “A mother is best. A mother knows what is inside you,” she said…“A psyche-atricks will only make you hulihudu, make you see heimongmong.” Back hom

51、e, I thought about what she said… [These] were words I had never thought about in English terms. I suppose the closest in meaning may be “confused” and “dark fog”. (Tan 172) Rose thinks “hulihudu” and “heimongmong” can’t

52、 be translated to English </p><p>　　Third, the mothers and the daughters have totally different experiences. The mothers have been to America during the World War Ⅱ, when China was intruded by Japanese army.

53、 They come to America with their American dream. They have suffered a lot before arriving America, and they come to America to search a better life putting all their hope in America, but after living in America for many

54、years, they feel that they lose some of their Chinese tradition and they try to hold fast of the Chinese trad</p><p>　　“It was not the only disappointment my mother felt in me. In the years that followed, I

55、failed her so many times, each time asserting my own will, my right to fall short of expectations. I didn’t get straight As. I didn’t become class president. I didn’t get into Stanford. I droped out of college.”(Tan 124)

56、</p><p>　　Ⅲ. The Cultural Understanding and Blending </p><p>　　Although Amy Tan mainly describes the cultural clashes in her novel, her real aim is to explore a balance of cultural conflicts. An

57、 important theme of the novel is the reconciliation of the multi-cultural clashes. From the beginning of the novel, Jing-Mei views the gap between her and her mother from two aspects, and this double point of view doesn’

58、t emphasize the generation gap, but instead, it works as the bridge of the communication between the two generations. In the third part of the novel,</p><p>　　Although Jing-Mei fears that she cannot tell the

59、 whole story of her mother, Suyuan runs through the novel with Jing-Mei’s voice, and Jing-Mei speaks for her mother in the first and fourth sections. Suyuan’s story represents the struggle to maintain the mother-daughter

60、 bonds through cultural and general gaps. Jing-Mei’s trip to China not only makes reconciliation between Suyuan’s two different life styles, but also the reconciliation between cultures and mother-daughter relationship.

61、In addition,</p><p>　　The understanding and reconciliation between mothers and daughters are shaped gradually. As in the last part of the novel, Jing-Mei and her father go to China to look for Jing-Mei’s hal

62、f sisters. When they arrive in GuangDong and see her father’s aunty, she still can’t understand her mother’s words of how to rebuild Jing-Mei’s genome to let her be a Chinese again. After Jing-Mei’s father tells her Suyu

63、an’s story after she runs away from GuiLin, she knows why her mother leaves the twins on the ro</p><p>　　In this multi-cultural novel, the author makes us understand the generational and cultural disparity.

64、The daughters once think that their mothers’ Chinese cultural background is the barrier of communication. They cannot understand their mothers’ belief and their ways of love. But when they meet some difficulties in their

65、 life, they turn to their mother to find help, and from their mothers’ stories, they finally understand their mothers. Ying-Ying begins to change herself only when she realizes t</p><p>　　“Her wisd

66、om is like a bottomless pond. You throw stones in and they sink into the darkness and dissolve. Her eyes looking back do not reflect anything. I think this to myself even though I love my daughter. She and I share the sa

67、me body there is a part of her mind that is part of mine. But when she was born, she sprang from me like a fish, and has been swimming away ever since. All her life, I have watched her as though from another shore. And n

68、ow I must tell her everything about my past. It is </p><p>　　Amy Tan shows us that a person can remain selective of her culture without giving up the heritage of her tradition. At the beginning of the novel,

69、 June Woo says, “My mother and I spoke two different languages… I talked to her English, she answered back in Chinese.”(Tan 20) but after her trip to China, she says: “My mother was right, I am becoming a Chinese.”(Tan 2

70、39) The last part of the novel Queen Mother of the Western Skies represents the theme. The mothers are queen mother, whose wisdom the </p><p>　?、? A Correct Attitude Towards Culture</p><p>　　An

71、unprecedented development happened in America during the 20th century. This rapid development on economy has accelerated the worldwide immigration. There are more and more people who put themselves into the totally new A

72、merican context while leaving their homeland, being separated from the historical and cultural background they used to live in for political, economic, scientific and cultural reasons. As the living environment is gradua

73、lly changing, these Chinese immigrants has something chan</p><p>　　Although Chinese people are deeply affected by the western culture, especially American culture, in the process of globalization, more and m

74、ore people realize that Chinese culture has its own value, and it cannot be eliminated. Chinese culture can absorb other cultures’ essence and can keep pace with the world’s development despite the backward aspect of it.

75、</p><p>　　Culture should be treated seriously, and anything that belongs to culture can’t be discarded easily, such as the dragon symbol. Dragon in Chinese culture symbolizes the stubbornness and the Chinese

76、 nation, but in western culture, it symbolizes the evil, so some one argues to cancel the dragon symbol. More people, however, argue that the dragon symbol could not be cancelled, for it is the root and the most importan

77、t thing in Chinese culture. If it were cancelled many Chinese idioms and expression</p><p>　　The westerners view China as a closed country and the people are conservative, lacking of creativity, so a correct

78、 attitude to our culture should be held. At the end of the novel, the understanding and reconciliation not only shows the author’s inheritance of Chinese traditional novels, but more important, embodies a correct attitud

79、e towards culture, that is, to inherit the mother culture and to absorb the new culture and to find balance between cultures. Today, in the multi-cultural context, if</p><p>　　Conclusion</p><p>

80、　　In the novel the Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan describes the conflicts between the mothers and the daughters. The misunderstandings between the mothers and the daughters in the novel are caused by the different cultural backg

81、rounds and experiences. Fortunately, through painful efforts, the mothers and the daughters begin to understand and communicate each other at the end of the story, which metaphorically demonstrates the transition of the

82、relationship between Chinese and American culture from conflic</p><p>　　As to our Chinese culture, it faces many challenges in the context of globalization. Although learning new technologies from other coun

83、tries and absorbing the essence of other cultures are necessary, Chinese culture should be protected. History and present interacts each other, and they inherit each other. There's no country in the world which can i

84、gnore the past with today’s prosperity. If anyone forgets his past, and loses his history, he will become a person without history and tradition, and</p><p>　　Acknowledgements</p><p>　　I would l

85、ike to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt thanks to my tutor—Yuan Bin, vice Dean of School of Foreign Languages and Cultures, who offers me academic and constructive advice on composing this paper. His patient

86、 help and timely encouragement are worthy of high acknowledgement. </p><p>　　Then, I would like to appreciate the help of other teachers, who give me useful advice on finishing this paper. They are Zhang Chu

87、n, Dean of School of Foreign Languages and Cultures; Sun Peng, Li Liqin, Cui Zhaohui, etc. Their useful advice and help made my paper much more mature than before.</p><p>　　Thirdly, I am very grateful of my

88、lovely friends, Luo Huarong, Yang Xueping, Xia Qingqing who offered me quiet situation to compose my paper and discuss with me about my paper.</p><p>　　Fourthly, I do need to thank the persons who give me my

89、 life—my father, Fang Ping, my mother, Zhou Jianfen, for their warm care and the chance of study. Last but not the least，I would like to express my thanks to those who spend their time in reading my paper.</p><

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