On The Mother-daughter Relationship In The Joy Luck Club From The Language And Culture Perspectives

In the past thirty years, Chinese American literature has gained growing attention through the endeavor of the Chinese American writers. Amy Tan became known for her first novel, The Joy Luck Club, and succeeded as another female Chinese-American writer after Maxine Hong Kingston established her fame as the first modern female Chinese- American writer. After giving an overall introduction and analysis of the development of Asia American literature and particularly, Chinese American literature in recent years, this thesis attempts from linguistic and cultural perspectives to probe into the reasons for the predicament faced by the mothers and daughters in the book, The Joy Luck Club. In examining the continuity and variation of the mother-daughter relationship, two themes are presented of sense of loss and search for identity. The thesis tries to extend the exploration of the meaning in the mother-daughter relationship to the solution for the development of (female) Chinese- American writers and also Chinese American literature. The conclusion searched throughout the thesis is: positioned as a minority in the predicament between the two worlds of Chinese (east) and America (west), the women in the book, the writer Amy Tan and Chinese American literature, will have to realize their situation and make use of the advantage of their unique peripheral position, so as to rid of the misery and passivity that they are suffering, step out of the dilemma with confidence and reclaim their culture identity in their own voice.