郭老师，

您好！下面是我修改后的论文题目和提纲

Title: Escape and Epiphany

-The Plight of the Protagonist’s Growth in The Catcher

in the Rye

Outline

Abstract:

Key word: growth, plight, escape, epiphany

Chapter1. Introduction

1.1The brief introduction of D.J.Salinger and his works

1.2 The literature review

Chapter2. Holden’s disillusionment for the adult world

2.1 Holden’s confusion in the love and sex

2.2 Holden’s dissatisfaction with education

2.3 Holden’s trauma for the loss of brother Chpter3. Holden’s pursuit for the innocent world

3.1 Holden’s sincere love for sister

3.2 Holden’s longer for pure love

3.3Holden’s sympathy to the people around him

3.4 Holden’s longer for an easy life in the rye Chpter4. Holden’s epiphany

4.1Epiphany on the growth and love

4.2Holden’s return to the real word

Chapter5.The factors leading to the plight of the protagonist’s growth

5.1Holden self’s sensitive character and sharp insight

5.2The hypocrisy of the real word

5.3 The lack of love from school, family and school

5.4The modernization of American society

Chapter6. Conclusion

Reference:

第二篇：The Joy Luck Club资料

/p-307467073.html

The Joy Luck Club (1989) is a best-selling novel written by Amy Tan. It focuses on four Chinese American immigrant families in San Francisco who start a club known as "the Joy Luck Club," playing the Chinese game of mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods. The book is structured somewhat like a mahjong game, with four parts divided into four sections to create sixteen chapters. The three mothers and four daughters (one mother, Suyuan Woo, dies before the novel opens) share stories about their lives in the form of vignettes. Each part is preceded by a parable relating to the game.

In 1993, the novel was adapted into a feature film directed by Wayne Wang and starring Ming-Na, Lauren Tom, Tamlyn Tomita, France Nguyen, Rosalind Chao, Kieu Chinh, Tsai Chin, Lisa Lu, and Vivian Wu. The screenplay was written by the author Amy Tan along with Ronald Bass. The novel was also adapted into a play, by Susan Kim, which premiered at Pan Asian Repertory Theatre in New York.

Plot Summary [edit]

The Joy Luck Club consists of sixteen interlocking stories about the lives of four Chinese immigrant women and their four American-born daughters. In 1949, the four immigrants meet at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco and agree to continue to meet to play mah jong. They call their mah jong group the Joy Luck Club. The stories told in this novel revolve around the Joy Luck Club women and their daughters. Structurally, the novel is divided into four major sections, with two sections focusing on the stories of the mothers and two sections on the stories of the daughters.

Feathers from a Thousand Li Away [edit]

The first section, Feathers from a Thousand Li Away, introduces the Joy Luck Club through Jing-Mei Woo, whose late mother Suyuan Woo founded the Joy Luck Club, and focuses on the four mothers. Jing-Mei relates the story of how her mother Suyuan was the wife of an officer in the Kuomingtang during the World War II and how she was forced to flee from her home in Kweilin and abandon her twin daughters. Suyuan later found out her first husband died, remarried to Jing-Mei's father, and emigrated to the United States. Her mother and Jing-Mei's father attempted to find Suyuan's daughters, and Jing-Mei's father assumed that Suyuan had given up hope. Jing-Mei, who has been asked to take her mother's place in the Joy Luck

Club, learns from the other mothers that her half-sisters are alive and ask that Jing-Mei tell them about Suyuan's death.

The other three mothers relate the stories of their childhood. An-Mei Hsu's story relates how her mother left her family to become the fourth concubine of Wu Tsing, a rich merchant, while An-Mei was raised by her maternal grandmother. Her mother returns only to cut off a piece of her flesh to cook a soup in hopes of healing An-Mei's grandmother, though An-Mei's grandmother still dies. Lindo Jong explains how in childhood she was forced into a loveless marriage and was pressured by her

mother-in-law's desire for Lindo to produce grandchildren. Through her own ingenuity, Lindo fabricates a convincing story to annul her marriage and emigrate to the United States. The final story of the first section follows Ying-Ying St. Clair, who tells the story of how she fell into a lake during the Zhongqiujie festival when she was only four. After being rescued by a group of fishermen, she realizes that she is lost. This experience emotionally traumatizes her, and she is dropped at the shore, and wanders into an outdoor performance featuring the Moon Lady, said to grant wishes. But when Ying-Ying approaches the Moon Lady after the play to wish to be returned to her family, she discovers the Moon Lady is played by a man.

The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates [edit]

The second section relates important childhood stories of the Joy Luck Club's American-born daughters. Lindo's daughter Waverly recalls being a national chess champion, but her relationship with her mother is strained by how Lindo pressures her and brags about Waverly's

accomplishments. Lena St. Clair, Ying-Ying's daughter, relates her

mother's nervous breakdown and her mother is extremely withdrawn to the point where first her father and then Lena winds up being Ying-Ying's voice. In contrast, Lena notices and initially pities neighbouring Sorci family, believing their noisiness is an expression of unhappiness, but realizes later it is how they express their love. An-Mei's daughter, Rose Hsu Jordan, reveals how her mother lost faith in God when Rose's youngest brother, Bing, drowned in a beach outing, after firmly believing that following the book "The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates" could prevent any harm to her children. However, An-Mei still insists that Rose puts faith in her failing marriage. The section concludes with Jing-Mei's story, where she reveals how Suyuan had high expectations that Jing-Mei would be talented like Waverly and tried to shape an uninterested Jing-Mei into a concert pianist, which ended after an embarrassing piano recital.

American Translation [edit]

The third section follows the Joy Luck children as adult women, all facing various conflicts. In Lena's story, she narrates her troubling marital problems and how she fears being inferior to her husband, but does not realize he has taken advantage of her both at home and at work, where he is also her boss and earns much more than her. Waverly Jong worries about her mother's opinion of her white fiance, Rich, and recalls quitting chess after becoming angry at her mother in the marketplace. Believing that her mother still has absolute power over her and will object to her forthcoming marriage to Rich, Waverly confronts her mother after a dinner party and realizes that her mother has known all along about her relationship with Rich and has accepted him. Rose Hsu Jordan learns that her husband intends to marry someone else after divorcing her, she realizes that she needs to fight for her rights and refuses to sign the conditions set forth by her husband's divorce papers. In Jing-Mei's story, Jing-Mei has an

argument with Waverly at a Chinese New Year's dinner the year before the story begins. Realizing that Jing-Mei has been humiliated, Suyuan gives Jing-Mei a special jade pendant called "life's importance," which

Jing-Mei rues that she never learned the meaning of the pendant's name. Queen Mother of the Western Skies [edit]

The final section of the novel returns to the viewpoints of the mothers as adults dealing with difficult choices. An-Mei reveals what happened after her grandmother died; she accompanied her mother back to where she lived as the abused fourth concubine of Wu Tsing, whose second concubine manipulates and controls the household and has taken An-Mei's

half-brother as her son. After learning how her mother was forced into accepting her position after Wu Tsing's second wife arranged for An-Mei's mother to be raped and shamed, An-Mei finds her mother has poisoned herself two days before Chinese New Year, knowing that Wu Tsing's superstitious beliefs will ensure An-Mei will grow in favourable conditions. Ying-Ying St. Clair reveals how her first husband, a womanizer, abandoned her and how she married an American man she did not love after relinquishing her sense of control in her life. Lindo Jong relates how she arrived in San Francisco and met An-Mei Hsu when they both worked at a fortune-cookie factory, which eventually gave her the means to plant the idea of marriage in her boyfriend's head.

The novel's final episode returns to Jing-Mei and her mother's desire to find her lost twin daughters. Jing-Mei and her father fly to China, where Jing-Mei meets her half-sisters and embraces her Chinese heritage.

Characters [edit]

Mothers [edit]

? Suyuan Woo

During the Second World War, Suyuan lives in China while her husband at the time served as an officer in Chungking (Chongqing). She starts the original Joy Luck Club with her three friends to cope with the war. There is little to eat, but they pretend it is a feast, and talk about their hopes for the future. On the day of the Japanese invasion, Suyuan leaves her house with nothing but a bag of clothes, a bag of food, and her twin baby daughters.

During the long journey, Suyuan contracts such severe dysentery that she feels certain she will die. Fearing that a dead mother would doom her babies' chances of rescue, she reluctantly and emotionally leaves her daughters under a barren tree, together with all her belongings, along with a note asking anyone who might find the babies to care for them and contact the father. Suyuan then departs, expecting to die. However, she is rescued by a truck and finds out her husband has died. She later remarries, comes to America, forms a new Joy Luck Club with three other Chinese female immigrants she met at church, and gives birth to another daughter. But her

abandonment of the twin girls haunts her for the rest of her life. After many years, Suyuan learns that the twins were adopted, but

As Suyuan dies before the novel begins, her history is told by Jing-mei, based on her knowledge of her mother's stories, anecdotes from her father, and what the other members of the Joy Luck Club tell her.

? An-Mei Hsu

An-Mei is raised by her grandparents and other relatives during her early years in Ningbo after her widowed mother shocks the family by becoming a concubine to a middle-aged wealthy man after her first husband's death. This becomes a source of conflict for the young An-Mei, as her aunts and uncles deeply resent her mother for such a dishonorable act. They try to convince An-Mei that it is not fitting for her to live with her disgraced mother, who is now forbidden to enter the family home. An-Mei's mother, however, still

wishes to be part of her daughter's life. After An-Mei's grandmother dies, An-mei moves out to live with her mother in the home of her mother's new husband, Wu-Tsing.

An-Mei learns that her mother was coerced into being Wu-Tsing's concubine through the manipulations of his Second Wife, the favorite. This woman arranged for An-Mei's mother, still in

mourning for her original husband, to be raped by Wu-Tsing. The stigma left An-Mei's mother with no choice but to marry Wu-Tsing and become his new but lowly Fourth Wife. She later lost her baby son to Second Wife, who claimed the boy as her own child to ensure her place in the household. Second Wife also tried to win over An-mei upon her arrival in Wu-Tsing's mansion, giving her a necklace made of "pearls" that her mother later revealed were actually glass beads by crushing one with her teacup. An-Mei's mother re-knots the necklace to hide the missing bead, but now An-Mei knows the truth about Second Wife's seeming generosity.

Wu-Tsing is a highly superstitious man, and Second Wife takes advantage of this weakness by making false suicide attempts and threatening to haunt him as a ghost if he does not let her have her way. According to Chinese tradition, a person's soul comes back after three days to settle scores with the living. Wu-Tsing,

therefore, is known to be afraid to face the ghost of an angry or scorned wife. After Second Wife fakes a suicide attempt to prevent An-Mei and her mother from getting their own small house, An-Mei's mother successfully commits suicide herself, eating tangyuan laced with lethal amounts of opium. She times her death so that her soul is due to return on the first day of the new year, a day when all debts must be settled lest the debtor suffer great misfortune. With this in mind, Wu-Tsing promises to treat his Fourth Wife's children, including An-Mei, as if they were his very own flesh and blood by an honored First Wife. When Second Wife attempts to disrupt this, An-Mei crushes the fake pearl necklace Second Wife gave her beneath her feet to show her awareness of all Second Wife's deception and to symbolize her new power over Second Wife, who now fears her and realizes the bad karma she has brought upon herself.

An-Mei later immigrates to America, marries, and gives birth to seven children (four sons, three daughters). The youngest, a son named Bing, drowns at age four.

? Lindo Jong

Lindo is a strong-willed woman, a trait that her daughter Waverly attributes to her having been born in the year of the Horse. When Lindo was only twelve, she was forced to move in with a neighbor's

young son, Huang Tyan-yu, through the machinations of the village matchmaker. After some training for household duties through her in-laws, she and Tyan-yu married when she turned sixteen. She soon realized that her husband was just a little boy at heart and had no sexual interest in her. Lindo began to care for her husband as a brother, but her cruel mother-in-law expected Lindo to produce a grandson. She restricted most of Lindo's daily activities, eventually ordering her to remain on bed rest until she could conceive and deliver a child.

Determined to escape this unfortunate situation, Lindo carefully observed the other people in the household and eventually formed a clever plan to escape her marriage without dishonoring herself or her family. She managed to trick her young husband's family into believing that he was actually fated to marry another girl who was already pregnant with his "spiritual child", and that her marriage to Huang Tyan Yu would only bring bad luck to the family. In reality, the girl in question was a mere servant in the household and indeed pregnant, but abandoned by her lover.

Freed from her first marriage, Lindo decided to emigrate to America. She married a Chinese-American man named Tin Jong and has three children: sons Winston and Vincent, and daughter Waverly.

Lindo experiences regret over losing some of her Chinese identity by living so long in America (she is treated like a tourist on a visit to China); however, she expresses concern that Waverly's American upbringing has formed a barrier between them.

? Ying-Ying "Betty" St. Clair

From a young age, Ying-Ying is told by her wealthy and conservative family that Chinese girls should be meek and gentle. This is

especially difficult for her, she feels, because she is a Tiger character. She begins to develop a passive personality and repress her feelings as she grows up in Wuxi. Ying-Ying marries a

charismatic man named Lin Xiao, not out of love, but because she believed it was her fate. Her husband is revealed to be abusive and openly has extramarital relationships with other women. When

Ying-Ying discovers she is pregnant, she gets an abortion and makes the decision to live with her relatives in a smaller city in China. After ten years, she moves to Shanghai and works in a clothing store, where she meets an American man named Clifford St. Clair. He falls in love with her, but Ying-Ying cannot express any strong emotion after her first marriage. He courts her for four years before she agrees to marry him after learning that Lin Xiao had died, which she takes as the proper sign to move on. She allows Clifford to

control most aspects of her life; he mistranslates her words and actions, and even changes her name to "Betty". Ying-Ying gives birth to her daughter, Lena, after moving to San Francisco with St. Clair. When Lena is around ten years old, Ying-Ying becomes pregnant a third time, but the baby boy is anencephalic and soon dies.

Ying-Ying is horrified when she realizes that Lena, a Tiger like herself, has inherited or emulated her passive behaviors and

trapped herself in a loveless marriage with a controlling husband. She finally resolves to call upon the more assertive qualities of her Tiger nature, to appeal to those qualities in Lena. She will tell Lena her story in the hope that she will be able to break free from the same passivity that ruined most of her young life back in China.

Daughters [edit]

? Jing-Mei "June" Woo

Jing-Mei has never fully understood her mother and seems

directionless in life. During June's childhood, her mother used to tell her that she could be anything she wants; however, she

particularly wanted her daughter to be gifted, a child star who amazes the world, like Ginny Tiu (seen briefly on television) or June's rival Waverly. At the beginning of the novel, June is chosen to replace her mother's seat in the Joy Luck Club after her mother's death. At the end of the novel, June is still trying to deal with her mother's death, and she visits China to see the twin

half-sisters (Wang Chwun Yu and Wang Chwun Hwa) whom her mother had been forced to abandon when the Japanese attacked China.

One critic[who?] has suggested[1] that the reason for the communication gap between Jing-Mei and her mother, and between the other daughters and their mothers—a major theme of the novel—occurs because the mothers come from a high context culture and the Americanized daughters from a low context culture. The mothers believe that the daughters will intuitively understand their cryptic utterances, but the daughters don't understand them at all.

? Rose Hsu Jordan

Rose is somewhat passive and is a bit of a perfectionist. She had an unsettling childhood experience when her youngest brother, Bing, drowned while she was supposed to be watching him, and his body was never recovered. Rose marries a doctor, Ted Jordan, who loves her but also wants to spite his snooty, racist mother. After a

malpractice suit, Ted has a mid-life crisis and decides to leave Rose. Rose confides in her mother and An-mei tells her the story of her own childhood. When Ted comes for the divorce papers, Rose finds her voice and tells him that he can't just throw her out of his life, comparing herself to his garden, once so beloved, now unkempt and full of weeds. An-Mei tells her that Ted has been

cheating on her, which Rose thinks is absurd, but she later

discovers this to be true. She wants to hire a good lawyer and fight for possession of the house, which she eventually wins.

? Waverly Jong

Waverly is an independent-minded and intelligent woman, but is annoyed by her mother's constant criticism. Well into her adult life, she finds herself restrained by her subconscious fear of letting her mother down. During their childhood, June and Waverly become childhood rivals; their mothers constantly compared their

daughter's development and accomplishments. Waverly was once a gifted chess champion, but quit after feeling that her mother was using her daughter's talent to show off, taking credit for Waverly's wins. She has a daughter, Shoshana, from her first marriage with Marvin, and she is engaged to her boyfriend Rich Shields.

? Lena St. Clair

Throughout Lena's childhood, she gradually becomes her mother's voice and interprets her mother's Chinese words for others. Like her father Clifford, she translates Ying-ying's words to sound more pleasant than what Ying-ying actually says. Ying-ying has taught Lena to beware of consequences, to the extent that Lena visualizes disaster in the taking of any risk. Lena's husband, Harold, is also her boss. He takes the credit for Lena's business and design ideas. He demands financial "equality" in their marriage. Lena is an

associate while Harold is a partner, so he has a larger salary than she does. However, he insists that all household expenses be divided equally between them. Harold believes that by making everything equal, they can make their love equal as well. Lena feels frustrated and powerless. She is like her mother, like a ghost, and her mother wants to help her regain her spirit and stand up for herself.

Criticism [edit]

Though Amy Tan's book has been widely praised by critics, it has also been alleged by Chinese-American author Frank Chin that it perpetuates racist

stereotypes and contains fabricated "traditional" stories.[2][3]

Chinese-American director Wayne Wang was impressed with the story and created a film version of the novel.[4] 喜福会是四个异国女性定期聚会、打牌的活动，慢慢就成了彼此倾诉心声的场所，她们都已经定居大洋彼岸多年，伴着时光的流逝，皱纹和白发已经慢慢涌现。她们在渐渐老去，老到无力再抗争自己的命运和生活，心里却依然记挂着曾经纠结的往事，她们希望自己的故事在后一代的身上传承下去，那些故事源自那个古老的国度，那是她们的故土，也是她们心灵栖息的地方。

我喜欢这部电影，不单单是因为它的细腻，更在乎的是其中绵延而出的史诗感，它不是那种荡气回肠的快意，而是弥漫于心底久久不散的一种共鸣。这是一个东方人的故事，手法却是西化，即使拍到中国望族的府第，也没有那种曲径通幽的纵深，而几近是一种平面化的书写，片中的几位女性，或出身高贵，或出身低微，心中的角落里总藏着一段故事。编导用不断的倒叙、插叙的手法回眸时光，并逐一揭开谜底，抖落出时间的灰烬，这是一段女性挣扎叛逆的历史，也是一首写给女人的抒情长诗。

谭恩美的这个故事有明显的经线和纬线，经线是地域、国别、语言、文化，纬线是时间、年轮、代沟、记忆。这些经纬线纵横交错，编织出的一个东方色彩、西方气质的画卷，围绕不同文化的理解总是有些“割裂”的，《喜福会》也更像是一个给西方人观看的“东方电影”，如同李安的《推手》或者《喜宴》，让人觉察到文化碰撞的那点点星火。事实上没有什么比文化上的割裂更有力，所以片中的四个新生代女人比她们的母亲更加独立、更加叛逆，她们操着一口流利的英文，处在一个自由的国度，过着自己选择的生活，到头来暮然回首却发现自己仍然是弱者。

女人是这个社会的第二性，不管是旧社会的妇女，还是新时代的女性，都逃不掉一种附属品的地位。民国时代的她们受尽了屈辱，或卖身为奴，或嫁做小妾，或摊上一个风流成性的老公，过的都是凄惨的生活，导演用大量的俯、仰镜头来表示这种地位上的差别，摄影机下的女性总是处于一种被俯视的角度，那是她们的脆弱、无奈和疯狂；处于仰视镜头下的，依稀是那些男人，那些代表正统的家族长辈，那些象征权威的祖宗灵牌。到了现代的时空，女性解放自我，社会仍然固守着传统的法则，女人和男人收入差距太大，AA制就显得太过牵强和难熬，还有女人有幸嫁入豪门，等待她的仍然是被抛弃的命运。

摄影机把这些纠结的女性推到了台前，男人则悄无声息的躲到了背后，四个母亲、四个女儿的背后，是父亲角色的集体缺席。母亲在这里象征了母体文化，她孕育后代，又渴望一种眼神；母亲也是最能体现文化传承的一类人，她们经历过青年时代的叛逆，生儿育女之后又复归于传统。她们渴望女儿们不再承受自己曾走过不幸，寄予她们无限的希望，开始按照自己的思路给她们规划前程；女儿们生在自由的国度，追求自由不想被控制，也常常觉得母亲的想法荒谬又可笑，于是这种各执己见的偏执形成了无形的代沟，它是文化上的沟壑，又是情感上的隔膜。片中母亲强制自己女儿所做的事情，不管弹钢琴、下国际象棋、与男人经济独立，都已经是一种西方化的事物和行为方式了，这是东西方文化的一个巨大反差，也是一种迫切需要改变的情感导致的偏差。

在慢慢的回溯中我们会发现，女性在一种自我抗争中解放了肉体上的捆绑，却同时戴上了精神的枷锁，或者是烙印。女人自有其偏执的一面，喜欢夸耀，也很好强，却没想过怎么去为自己而生活，她们以聪明才智对待别人，以伤口和疼痛对待自己，本身就是一个困囿于自我世界里的可怜人，于是她们开始一致的寻求改变，寻找相互的共融。《喜福会》是在某种程度上将她们的经历放大，母女之间的冲突也被摆在了主要地位，它富于戏剧化，伴随多场情感冲突，浮显出非同一般的文化内涵和艺术张力。移民电影大多以一种和谐收场，《喜宴》

《喜福会》里写到四对不同的母女，站在各自的角度分别叙述各自的生活。母亲都是在战乱时期，从中国逃离去美国的。怎么会是逃离。她们当中，有人要离开战乱的中国，有的是成功地逃出一段荒唐的婚姻，亦有在等到自己丈夫的死讯后，嫁给美国人…总之，在她们终于踏上去往美国的路上时，也是她们怀揣着对美好生活的无限憧憬，通往一条未知的路上。喜福会仅仅是在桂林时，几个女子给麻将聚会取的名字，当然，这喜和福里面，同样也寄托着女子们美好的愿望。所以，喜福会仅仅是一场麻将里的东南西北四个角色，谁输谁赢，结束都是喜乐一场，吃元宵，穿漂亮衣服，在一起聊天回忆，那些她们年轻时的岁月。

故事里的四个女儿都是在美国出生和长大的女子，虽然她们的外表和母亲们非常相像，可她们却似乎从一开始就在同自己的母亲们抗争。女儿们用支离破碎的汉语同母亲们交谈，当母亲开始用同样结巴的英语同她们解释和沟通时，换来的只是她们的耻笑，甚至是商店里，大街上，明目张胆地挑衅。母亲偶尔脱口而出的言辞，被当成是无端的、带有恶意的揣测，在女儿眼里永远都是无休止的挑剔，母亲们永远都在指向她们心灵的痛楚，那些女儿们试图要掩饰，却在西方环境里成长，学不会掩饰的伤疤。母亲们希望女儿们融入美国的社会，却又不想让她们失去中国的性子，那从未来女婿脸上一个一个小小雀斑、从房间的布置，都能看出未来的婚姻是不是幸福，生活会不会完满……这些细微的事件，从女儿看来，就是莫名其妙，不可理喻。直到最后成年了，经历许多优柔寡断和人生的患得患失后，女儿们可能懂得了当初母亲竭力要保护自己、不想要自己受到伤害的良苦用心。可惜，那又有什么用呢，那些从别的母亲嘴里了解到的自己的妈妈，那些从父亲口里了解到的母亲，已经年迈，甚至离开人世，那些许久萦绕在心头想要问的问题，永远地没有了答案。

A Cultural Interpretation of Maternal Love in the Joy Luck Club

Abstract

The Joy Luck Club is written by Amy Tan，a famous Chinese American writer. In the novel, she presents the stories of four Chinese-immigrant women and their American-born daughters. Each of the four Chinese women has her own view of the world based on her experiences in China and wants to share her experiences with her daughter, and they never cease to try to build a bridge over the cultural differences and conflicts between them and their daughters with their maternal love of various forms. At first the daughters don’t understand their mothers and the Chinese cultur

e that their mothers represent, but as time elapses, the daughters begin to understand and appreciate their mothers' past and accept their mothers in the end. In fact, it is the maternal love the Joy Luck Club mothers extend to their daughters that finally makes their daughters understand them and the Chinese culture that they represent. In this sense, the maternal love not only symbolizes Chinese culture, but more importantly serves as a bridge over the mothers and daughters, and over Chinese culture and American culture.

Key Words

The Joy Luck Club; conflicts; understanding; culture; maternal love

摘

要

《喜福会》是美国著名的华裔女作家谭恩美的代表作品。在小说中,她呈现给读者的是四位中国移民母亲与 她们女儿之间的故事。这四位母亲都有着自己的世界观，她们的世界观又是立足于她们的中国生活经历。 她们想把自己的经历一一讲述给女儿,并努力通过母爱的表达在她们与女儿的文化差异和冲突之间建立起 沟通的桥梁。 起初女儿们不能理解她们的母亲及其代表的中国文化,但随着时间的流逝,女儿们开始理解她们 的母亲,同情她们母亲的悲惨过去并最终接受了她们的母亲。事实上，正是《喜福会》中母亲给予女儿们无 微不至的母爱才最终使得女儿们理解了她们的母亲及其代表的中国文化。因而, 《喜福会》中的母爱不仅 是中国文化的象征,更重要的是母女理解与沟通的桥梁，也是中美文化交流的桥梁。 关键词

《喜福会》；冲突；理解；文化；母爱

Introduction

Amy Tan’s the Joy Luck Club is a masterpiece in Chinese-American literature. The Joy Luck Club mothers and their daughters have been the focus of research ever since the publication of this book. Some researchers put the emphasis on the relationship between the mothers and daughters while some others believe that it is the writing style that makes Amy Tan’s the Joy Luck Club a success. For there are conflicts that have been vividly described in this book, some researchers make the conflicts in the Joy Luck Club the theme of their thesis. However, in this thesis, maternal love will be the theme, and it will be interpreted from a cultural point of view. Through the stories of the Joy Luck Club, the secret-laden lives of four Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-born daughters are shown in front of the readers. The daughters reject their mothers’ seemingly constant criticism of everything they choose, from husbands to hairdos. They view their mothers’ warnings as irrelevant, and their advice as intrusive. The daughters do not know what has inspired their warnings and advice: the hardships their mothers suffered in China before coming to the United States. Thus, as the mothers see it, their daughters are flailing in their modern American circumstances, unable to use what is “in their bones,” the family’s inheritance of pain that led to their determined strength for survival, which their mothers try to bequeath them. The mothers, meanwhile, watch with heartache as their daughters’ marriages fail, as they expect less and less and so accept less and less. Conflicts have become something that prevents the understanding and communication between mothers and daughters. In fact, all the conflicts are caused by cultural differences. The Joy Luck Club mothers have accepted and been deeply influenced

by Chinese culture, while their daughters are born and grow up in the United States and know little about Chinese culture. What they have accepted is the American mainstream culture which is somehow contradictory with Chinese culture. However, due to the maternal love of the Joy Luck Club mothers, the mothers and daughters finally understand each other. The maternal love in the Joy Luck Club helps the daughters understand their mothers; furthermore, its significance lies in that it serves as a bridge of cultural understanding between Chinese culture and American culture.

I. Conflicts Between Mothers and Daughters in the Joy Luck Club

Conflict is the main plot in the Joy Luck Club. Because the two generations are born and grow up in different cultural environments, the Joy Luck Club mothers and their daughters have many conflicts. The mothers are deeply influenced by the traditional Chinese culture, while their daughters are born and get educated in the United States, whose culture is a completely different one. Thus the Joy Luck Club mothers and daughter can never understand each other. The daughters at first have a strong prejudice against their mothers and the Chinese culture. Born in the United States and brought up in 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 mother’s 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. The Joy Luck Club mothers intervene so much in their daughters’ life that the daughters feel their mothers’ love is not embracing but suffocating. Waverly, a chess prodigy thinks she has grown cleverer than her mother who gives her “invisible strength.” Lena fears being drawn into her mother’s madness and consoles herself by imagining others who have a life worse than hers. Rose, whose mother cannot let go of the memory of her son who drowned, now believes that by hoping for less, one isn’t vulnerable to loss. And June believes it is her mother’s impossibly high expectations that make her feel that even today, she is a failure.

On the other hand, for the Joy Luck Club mothers, they also cannot understand some behaviors of their American-born daughters. Their behaviors are so different from their mothers’ culture that their mothers even feel distain about the American culture. Ying-ying can’t bear the go-Dutch rule between Lena and her husband. Under the rule, the couple only pays for their common life expenditures that both of them have to use in their daily life. If they want to buy some personal commodities, they must pay for themselves. This is no surprise in the western countries, especially

in the U.S. But according to the Chinese culture in which their mothers were born and grew

up, it’s unacceptable. A married Chinese couple cannot calculate the family financial expenditure so clearly; they must share the burden together. When (Jing-mei) Woo quarrels with her mother Suyuan, Suyuan says in Chinese, “Only two kinds of daughters, those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter! ” (Tan 124). Because in Chinese culture, children must obey their parents without any excuse. So when June makes her mother angry, Suyuan bursts out these Chinese characters. Due to the cultural differences, the Joy Luck Club mothers and daughters have many barriers in communication and understanding, and these barriers cannot be elated in a short period. For quite a long time, the Joy Luck Club mothers, who live in the United States as minority groups, are overwhelmed by American mainstream society, but they make great efforts to make their daughters understand them and the Chinese culture. They chat with their daughters about their past experiences and impart maternal love to their daughters, patiently waiting for the moment when their daughters can understand and respect them and the Chinese culture. Finally thanks to their maternal love they imparted to their daughters and the same blood that flows in their bodies, the Joy Luck Club mothers are able to make their daughters know and understand them and the Chinese culture.

II. Maternal Love in the Joy Luck Club

Every mother loves her child or children. Although the Joy Luck Club mothers are very strict with their daughters, they still love their daughters. And the maternal love the four mothers impart to their daughters is just a typical Chinese one. The maternal love of Chinese mothers is not as direct as that of American mothers. Chinese mothers do not kiss and hug their daughters and say “I love you” to them like their American counterparts. (Yu Longyu 173).The Joy Luck Club mothers all love their daughters in a Chinese way. First, just as the woman in the preface of the Feathers From A Thousand Li Away cooes to her swan, In America I will have a daughter just like me. But over there nobody will measured by the loudness of her husband's belch. Over there nobody will look down on her, because I will make her speak only perfect American English. And over there she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow! She will know my meaning, because I will give her this swan—a creature that became more than what was hoped for. (Tan 3 ). , the Joy Luck Club mothers put high expectations upon their daughters. They hope their daughters will become successful. They begin to plan for their daughters’ future since they are children. They don’t care whether their daughters like the plan or not, because in traditional Chinese culture, sons and daughters must obey their parents,

and they cannot rebel against the parents. If they do this, it is filial impiety, and they will be criticized by the family members and the neighbors and the society. Although the Joy Luck Club mothers have immigrated to the U.S, a brand-new country, their concept of the Chinese culture cannot be left behind in China. Both Suyuan and Lindo put great hope to their adolescent daughters. Suyuan hopes that one day

her daughter will become famous like Shirley Temple. In order to turn her dream into reality, she lets Jingmei do lots of intelligence test that she has colleted from some magazines. She even trades housecleaning service for weekly piano lessons for her daughter Jingmei. Lindo wants her daughter Waverly to win as many champions as possible in chess games. When Waverly is practicing the chess game skills, she always stands behind Waverly, although she doesn’t know too much about chess. She arranges timetables for her daughter and she even asks Waverly’s brothers to clean the dish after supper, which is what Waverly has to do before she becomes a famous chess player in her district. Second, the Joy Luck Club mothers criticize their daughters much more instead of praising them more like the American mothers. In their eyes, if they want their children to have power and skills so that they can survive in the fiercely competitive society, they have to be strict with their offspring. For the Joy Luck Club mothers, in order to make sure that their daughters are powerful enough in the future, they are very strict with their daughters and criticize them much instead of praising them. When Ying-ying thinks that Lena can go to school by herself, she urges again and again: “You must not walk in any direction but to school and back home” (Tan 87). But too much criticism makes the daughters feel dissatisfied and even angry with their mothers. They cannot accept this kind of love because they are strongly influenced by American individualism. They cannot bear their mothers’ arbitrariness and criticism no longer. Some of them openly say “no” to their mothers. Jingmei, for example, voices her strong protest: “I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I’m not” (Tan 117). She even takes radical actions against her mother. In order to disappoint her mother intentionally, she discontinues her college life. And for Waverly, when her mother shows her off in the stores again and again, she can’t help shouting out her anger at her mother: “Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, why don’t you learn to play chess?” (Tan 81). The daughters can never understand their mothers on this aspect.

Third, they care too much for their daughters’life. The Chinese parents hope that their offspring will have a happy life. Even if their child or children get maried, they will still pay much attention to their marital life, and want to make sure that their offspring have a happy life. For the Joy Luck Club mothers, their care and love can be reflected in the assistance they provide their daughters to solve their marriage problems. They never hesitate to help their daughters when their daughters have marriage problems. They try their best to pull their daughters out of

troubles. Both Rose and Lena marry Americans. In front of their American husbands, they have a sense of inferiority. Rose does not make any decision on anything. Instead, she lets her husband decide because she believes her husband’s decision is always better. Gradually, she begins to lose charms to her husband who believes that she is shouldering off responsibility. He even proposes a divorce. Crisis also exists in Lena’s marriage. They fight to solve the problems, but they are too weak to work out a solution. At this critical moment, their mothers do not walk away from them but try their best to help their daughters. An-mei encourages Rose to speak up,

“Why do you not speak up for yourself? Why can you not talk to your husband?” (Tan 176). When Rose takes her mother’s advice and does speak up for herself, she not only astounds her arrogant husband, but also saves her marriage. Ying-ying shows her daughter what disastrous consequences would happen if she continues to ignore the imbalance between her and her husband. In this way, she reminds her daughter to take immediate actions to get rid of the imbalance in her marriage. From the assistance that their mothers provide them, the two daughters feel the deep love as well as the powerful strength of their Chinese mothers, although sometime they may feel annoyed. Rose finally realizes that her mother is more enthusiastic and helpful than an American psychiatrist in pulling her out of psychological troubles. The American psychiatrist only makes her feel “hulihutu”. As for Lena, she finds out that her mother loves her better even than her American husband because her mother still clearly remembers that she never eats ice-cream while her husband knows nothing about it even though he has been married to her for many years. From this aspect, the Joy Luck Club mothers give their daughters a lot of help and comfort. In fact, the maternal love of the Joy Luck Club mothers exists almost everywhere. The four daughters come to realize that their mothers are always loving them in every possible situation. They find out that their mothers would express maternal love at any moment. At the crab dinner, Suyuan would not let her daughter Jingmei pick the crab with a broken leg after every guest has taken away the good ones. In Suyuan’ eyes, a crab with a broken leg is a symbol of bad luck. She does not want her daughter to suffer from bad luck. In order to protect Jingmei from bad luck, when there are only two crabs in the plate, Suyuan picks the one with a broken leg for herself, and gives her daughter the better one. Again, the maternal love of a Chinese mother is vividly shown here. The mothers would always protect their daughters and make any sacrifice for them at any moment. In all, the maternal love that the Joy Luck Club mothers show to their daughters is brim with Chinese culture. In the beginning, because their daughters don’t know anything about their mothers’ motherland culture, they cannot understand their mothers, but after hearing their mothers’ experiences in China, and sensing their mothers’ sincere love, they begin to understand and accept their mothers. Although they have been soaked in the American culture,

the same blood of the Chinese people in their bodies and their mothers’ love reminds them that they cannot deny their mothers’ culture.

III. Cultural Dialogue, Communication and Understanding

Because of the constant maternal love of the Joy Luck Club mothers, the daughters begin to understand and appreciate their mothers and the Chinese culture that their mothers represent. They begin to have cultural dialogue and communication with their mothers. Although they don’t have any special dialogue or discussion about the Chinese culture, the Joy Luck Club mothers try to grasp every chance to tell their daughters the knowledge about China. When Waverly and her mother have a dialogue about Genghis Khan, Taiyuan is mentioned. Waverly misunderstands it as Taiwan, her mother corrects her instantly, “I was born in China, in Taiyuan. Taiwan is a pr

ovince of China.” (Tan 167). She doesn’t want her daughter misunderstand her motherland. On another occasion when some boys in Waverly’s class say Chinese people do Chinese torture, her mother corrects her daughter, “Chinese people do many things. Chinese people do business, do medicine, and do painting. Not lazy like American people. We do torture. Best torture.” (Tan 73). Lindo says these words because she doesn’t want her daughter feel unconfident in front of her American classmates. In this way, she tells her daughter that Chinese people are not inferior to any other people in the world. For them (the Joy Luck Club mothers), the offspring of Chinese immigrants are as superb as the Americans. Thus, through this kind of daily dialogue, the Joy Luck Club mothers instill a sense of Chineseness into their daughters’ hearts.

Thanks to their great efforts and maternal love, on one hand, the Joy Luck Club mothers gain understanding from their daughters; on the other hand, they impart the Chinese culture to their American-born daughters, which is of the most significance. cause In the process of dialogue and communication, cultural barriers that

misunderstanding between mothers and daughters are being removed little by little, and in the end the

understanding and blending of the two cultures are achieved.

Conclusion

Due to the disparate cultures they are born in, the Joy Luck Club mothers and daughters at first find it is difficult to have mutual understanding. However, as the Joy Luck Club mothers tell the daughters their experiences in China, their American daughters begin to know why sometimes their mothers’ behaviors are so different, or even backward and superstitious in their eyes. Their mothers suffer a lot before they immigrate to the United States, but

the maternal love they impart to their daughters is not changing. The love is a typically Chinese one and differs from the love their American classmates and friends receive from their mothers. However, the maternal love serves as a bridge that links the differences and conflicts between the mothers and daughters. To sum up, the Joy Luck Club mothers are the carriers of the traditional Chinese culture, the media of history and memory and the bridges that link the past and the present. Their maternal love to the daughters is laden with Chinese culture. It is just because of this maternal love that the Chinese culture can be extended; Chinese history and memory can be rebuilt for the daughters. Through the maternal love of their mothers, the Joy Luck Club daughters finally accept their mothers and the Chinese culture their mothers represent. And from a deep level, the maternal love in the Joy Luck Club represents the momentum of the understanding and blending of all the cultures in the world, which is a call of the new century.