论《喜福会》中母女之间的文化冲突 毕业论文.doc

【标题】论喜福会中母女之间的文化冲突 【作者】林慧丽 【关键词】冲突；不同文化；思想体系；家庭观念 【指导老师】康康 【专业】英语 【正文】. introductionchineseamerican writers who live in both chinese and american cultures are the most sensitive to cultural conflict and integration. they are also the ones who show the greatest concern to the issue. amy tan is one of those writers who probe deeply into the relationship between the chinese and american cultures. the birth of her first book, the joy luck club, a novel that tells stories of four chinese mothers and their american- born daughters, caused a great sensation inside and outside the united states and made tan a famous writer. ann.h.fisher, a famous american writer, speaks highly of the novel:“reminiscent of maxine hong kingstons the woman warriors in its vivid depiction of chinese- american women, this novel is full of complicated, endearingly human characters and firstrate story telling in the oral tradition. it should be a hit in any fiction collection.” 1 as a matter of fact, the novel sold an astonishing 275,000 copies upon its 1989 publication. it was also nominated and then selected as a finalist for the national book award and the national book critics circle award. moreover, the novel has been translated into 25 languages, including chinese.this thesis mainly focuses on tans book the joy luck cub. it is about four chinese mothers who grew up in china before 1949, and their daughters who grew up in america. suyuan woo(吴素云)and jing-mei“june” woo（吴精妹）, ying-ying st. clair（英英?圣克莱尔）and lena. st. clair.（莉娜?圣克莱尔） an-mei hsu(许安梅) and rose. hsu jordan(罗斯?许), lindo jong(莉娜?龚)and waverly jong（韦利?龚）the stories of them are interwoven in four major sections with mothers and daughters telling their stories of how they come to be what they are in life. in the novel, the mothers and the daughters have a hard time to communicate. the major theme of it is the mother-daughter relationship, especially the conflicts between them.the thesis focuses on the conflicts among four pairs of mothers and daughters and concludes that the conflicts are due to their different cultures, including the different ideologies, different languages and different cultural concepts. conflicts between mothers and daughtersa. conflicts between suyuan and wu jing-meias a child, jing-mei set herself against her mothers many hopes for her and disappointed her mother as possible as she could; she had never been a straight-a student, never attended stanford university, and dropped out of school without earning her bachelors degree.suyuan believed that she had the right to arrange the life of her daughter and it was natural for jing-mei to listen to her. she wanted her daughter to be a famous pianist. in order to make it come true, she even traded housecleaning service for weekly lessons for jing-mei to practice playing the piano. jing-mei, on the other hand, felt she had the right to disobey her mother. in order to disappoint her mother, she intentionally disgraced her mother by performing badly at a concert. the angry mother yanked by the arm, pulled her off the floor and lifted her up and onto the hard bench. this drew the daughters strong protest:“you want me to be someone that im not. ill never be the kind of daughter you want me to be i wish i wasnt your daughter. i wish you werent my mother. 2neither jing-mei nor suyuan is completely to blame for the piano recital disaster. it is suyuans incessant nagging and insinuations regarding her daughters inadequacies that partially drive jing-mei to refuse to practice seriously. the pain jing-mei feels after the recital stems not just from her own failure but also from her shame in having disappointed her mother. this shame will persist into her adult life.b. conflicts between lindo and waverlythere are strong conflicts between lindo and waverly.lindo came to america not only for her own better material life but also for her daughters future development. as lindo said“i want my children to have the best combination american circumstances and chinese character.”3like suyuan, lindo also imposed her own dream on her daughter, waverly. she expected her daughter to be outstanding. so she taught waverly the skills of invisible strengths-of hiding ones thoughts until the time is ripe to reveal them, and of believing in ones inner force even when one found himself at a disadvantage, which she learned from her early age. because of her cultivation and concessions, waverly became a national chess champion at the age of nine and was touted as american hope.lindo believed that a mother and her daughter were inseparable and that a daughters success also belonged to her mother. when waverly practiced playing chess, lindo liked to give her some suggestions. when waverly won a competition, lindo would show off in front of others.“i told my daughter, use your horses to run over the enemyshe won very quickly this way.”4 waverly was angry that her mother had taken all the credit. she told her mother that she should shut up and shouldnt show off since she didnt know anything about chess. the conflict between mother and daughter became open when the latter angrily shouted at her mother in the street“why do you have to use me to show off? if you want to show off, why dont you learn to play chess?”5c. conflicts between an-mei and rosealthough the conflicts between an-mei and rose are not as strong as those between the above two pairs of mothers and daughters, we can also find some common qualities between them. rose married a caucasian ted, whom her mother regards as a waigoren(an american).when she was baffled by her marriage problem, rose firstly went to talk about her marriage problem with other people, such as her friends, her psychiatrist. everybody it may be, except her mother. born and brought up in america, rose inevitably held a prejudice against her mother and her chinese culture. she always believed that american culture was superior to chinese culture and american version was always better. in her eyes, her mother symbolized backwardness and ignorance. so when rose came up with her marriage problem, she would rather go to the psychiatrist than consult with her mother.d. conflicts between ying- ying and lenaying-ying and lena is another pair of mother and daughter in the joy luck club.there are also some conflicts and misunderstanding between them.ying-ying once sighed,“when lena was born, she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and has been swimming away even since. all her life, i have watched her as though from another shore” 6.although ying-ying thought of herself and her daughter as having shared the same body, as being of the same flesh, and she also saw lena as having sprung away like a slippery fish that exists on a distant shore. obviously, the mother and the daughter are separated from each other since lena was born and inevitably there is a great gap between them.the major conflict and misunderstanding existing between immigrant mothers and american-born daughters is that the chinese mothers strive to instill their american-born daughters with an understanding of their heritage, and also attempt to save them from the pain they felt as girls when growing up in china. the daughters, however, often see their mothers attempts at guidance as a form of hypercritical meddling, or as a failure to understand american culture. the daughters thus respond by attempting to escape from their mothers assimilation. both the mothers and the daughters struggle with issues of identity. the mothers try to reconcile their chinese past with their american present; the daughters attempt to find a balance between the independence and the loyalty to their heritage.different cultures have different ways of life. because of disparate cultures, the mother-daughter conflicts are displayed specially in different ways of life. first, the maternal love of chinese mothers is not direct as that of american mothers. the maternal love the joy luck club mothers extend to their daughters is a typical chinese one. they do not kiss or hug their daughters and say“i love you” to their american counterparts. they all love their daughters in their own chinese way. like every other mother in china, the immigrant mothers attach great hopes to their adolescent daughters. such as, suyuan hopes that one day her daughter jing-mei will become famous like shirley temple and live a better life. and lindo wants her daughter waverly to win as many champions as possible in chess playing.in addition, harsh criticism instead of praise is often the way chinese mothers adopt to cope with their daughters. while harsh criticism is always misunderstood by the daughters and it often discourages the daughters. chinese mothers want their daughters to have power and skills so that they can survive in the fiercely competitive society. in order to make sure that their daughters are powerful enough in the future, they have to be strict with their daughters and criticize their daughters much instead of praising them. the immigrant mothers share the same characteristic with the other chinese mothers: fierce love for their daughters often expressed as criticism rather than praise. the four mothers also criticize their daughters much instead of praising them. this arouses dissatisfaction and even anger of the four daughters who have been americanized. the daughters cannot endure their mothers criticism any longer.they openly oppose their mothers, jing-mei voices her strong protest,“i wont let her change me. i wont be what im not”7.she even takes radical measures against her mother. in order to deliberately disappoint her mother, she drops out college. waverly also speaks out her anger at her mother:“why do you have to use me to show off? if you want to show off, why dont you learn to play chess?”8. rose and lena openly oppose their mothers like the two daughters motioned above, but the mothers criticism always means,“i think you deserve better” which is a reflection of their high expectation on their daughters. however the chinese mothers chinese way of expressing love, which conceals their true emotions behind the seemingly strictness towards their daughters, is unacceptable to the americanized daughters.jing-mei, waverly, rose, and lena cant realize the greatness of the love their mothers show them. the causes of the conflicts between mothers and daughtersa. different cultural ideologiesthe chinese immigrant mothers in this novel were born and grew up in the feudalist and war-torn china, and all of them lived a tragic life before they came to the united states. at that time, the second world war was still going on and feudalism was still flourishing and tightly controlling the chinese peoples mind. womens social position was lower than that of men; they did not have freedom to do their favorite things. even their marriage was arranged by their parents. suyuan, one of the mothers, lived a wandering life because of the war. she was separated from her husband and lived alone in guilin. in order to avoid the japanese, she fled guilin to chongqing to join her husband. on the way to chongqing, she had abandoned everything she brought with her, including her twin daughters. bitterness and suffering swallowed an-mei when she was young. an-mei and her mother were driven out by her uncle because an-meis mother was believed to have disgraced the family when she remarried wuqing as his concubine after the death of an-meis father. as a married woman, an-meis mother was supposed to be loyal to her dead husband. this is one of the three obediences in the chinese feminine ideal. besides this, a chinese woman should also obey to her parents and even her son9. an even bigger shadow was cast upon an-mei when she lived with her mother in wuqings house, where she witnessed the suffering and death of her mother. lindo and ying-ying also lived a miserable life because their marriages were arranged by their parents. experience-relating made the four mothers tell their daughters that living in such a chaotic and feudalist society was not easy for the chinese woman and that it was even more difficult for them to challenge the feudal and the chaotic age.in contrast, their daughters are born and get educated in the united states and are therefore greatly influenced by american mainstream culture; they inevitably hold a prejudice against their mothers and the chinese culture. they believe that american culture is superior to chinese culture. in their eyes, their mothers symbolize backwardness and ignorance. they are dissatisfied with their mothers who use toothpick in public. they are ashamed of their mothers who open jars to smell the insides in grocery stores and they are angry with their mothers who like to use them to show off. naturally the four daughters try to identify themselves with american mainstream culture. both rose and lena marry americans or what their mothers call waiguoren. they admire the americans and their culture so much that they are willing to make sacrifice for their american husbands. waverly thinks that her mothers chinese outlook would make her lose face when she attends her wedding, so she conspires with her beauty parlor to dress up her mother in an american style. for quite a long time, the joy luck club mothers, who live in the united states as a minority group, are overwhelmed by american mainstream society. they look like a tiny drop of water in a big ocean. their existence has been ignored by american society even by their own daughters. in a word, the culture behind the mothers and the culture behind the daughters are totally different.according to burk, when the members of a particular society feel their way of life is so superior to all others that it is their duty to change other people to their way of thinking and doing,their attitude is likely to cause hostility and conflicts.10 being born and growing up in china, the joy luck club mothers had been strongly influenced by the idea of chung hsiao(忠孝),loyalty to the emperor and filial piety to parents and confucian doctrines of three kinds of obediences and four virtues(三从四德). the three obediences were to be obedient to ones father when unmarried, to ones husband when married and to ones son when widowed.11on the contrary, the daughters embraced the american ideal of individualism. they highly valued the spirit of independence and held the belief that“god help those who help themselves.” therefore they liked to make their own choice, fight alone for success and enjoy the fruit of success all by themselves. however, being proud of the chinese culture and afraid that their daughters might be completely influenced by american culture and changed by american society, the mothers in the novel strived to influence their daughters who were also sure of themselves and the american culture steadfastly and firmly resisted the influence of their chinese mothers.blanguage barrier between mothers and daughtersin the joy luck club, language also plays a very important role. the incomplete cultural understanding of both the mothers and the daughters owes to their incomplete knowledge of language. additionally, the barriers that exist between the mothers and the daughters are often due to their inability to communicate with one another. although the daughters know some chinese words and the mothers speak some english, communication often become a matter of translation, of words whose intended meaning and accepted meaning are in fact quite separate, leading to subtle misunderstanding.the first mention of this difficulty in translation(the barrier of the language) occurs when jing-mei relates the story of her mothers founding of the joy luck club. after attempting to explain the significance of the clubs name, jing-mei recognizes that the concept is not something that can be translated. she points out that the daughters think their mothers are stupid because of their fractured english, while the mothers are impatient with their daughters who dont understand the cultural nuances of their language and who do not intend to pass along their chinese heritage to their own children.ying-ying never learned english very well. thus she spoke halting english, using gestures. because clifford(her husband) couldnt understand her, so he asked her to repeat what she had said in some specific ways. although lena understands her mothers words in mandarin, she hardly ever understand her, often considering what she says to be crazy or nonsensical, when she is force to act as a translator for her mother, she often alters the english meaning of what others say so as to trick her mother into acting in more conventional-seeming ways. conversely, she translates her mothers odd expressions into english words that convey more mainstream thoughts.12the language barrier between mothers and daughters still shows the appearance in the following aspect: the four mothers used lots of chinese expressions to communicate with their daughters. as the immigrants living in the united states, these chinese mothers were expected to speak english, which they and their daughters could both understand. however, they stubbornly used chinese instead of english to communicate with their daughters even though the latter knew little chinese. actually, their use of chinese was deliberate. by using their native language instead of a foreign language, they not only struggled to make their chinese identity known, but also tried to seek a sense of cultural superiority in the communication. as for the daughters, they spoke english and known nothing about their mothers broken english and even looked down upon them. they always turn a deaf ear to what their mothers said. they are impatient with their mothers poor english.as to the mothers, the joy luck c