Thematic Analysis Of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

Amy Tan, categorized as one of the most prominent Chinese American writers, has made a significant impact on the Chinese American literature. Her first novel The Joy Luck Club aroused extensive attention and favorable comments from American literary circles since its publication. In this novel she narrates four pairs of mothers and daughters' respective stories from the first person point of view. Through these stories, it explores the identity issue of Chinese American women. The thesis will focus on the thematic analysis of The Joy Luck Club, illustrating how these Chinese American women recognize and search for their identity. It analyzes the Chinese American women's identity from three aspects—ethnic identity, gender identity and cultural identity. In order to search for their true identity, these Chinese American women adopt different methods, which will be summarized into five parts: breaking silence, talking stories, righting stereotypes, challenging patriarchy and looking for root. At last, the thesis concludes that Chinese American women cannot be identified as pure Chinese, nor pure American, but Chinese American. To find such an identity, they must combine Chinese culture and American culture together, which in some way represents the trend of cultural development in the 21st century.