The Evolvement Of Female Images In The Joy Luck Club

Amy Tan is a distinguished writer in Chinese American literature. Her works are written about Chinese American women and tell the history of Chinese American' immigration, such as The Joy Luck Club. In this novel, Amy Tan depicts three kinds of female images:mainland women, immigrant women and ABC women.Mainland women refer to those who are born in the old China. Such as An-mei's mother in The Joy Luck Club.They have not leave China for all their lives. Live in the margins of feudal society, these women are influenced by Chinese traditional culture and suppressed by the patriarchal system. They gradually lose selves and finally become the victims of the society. Immigrant women are those who are born in China, but later move to the America for some reason. Such as the four mothers in The Joy Luck Club.Because most of them have received education and affected by New Culture Movement, their subject consciousness begin to awake. They dare to resist the destined fate and break the chains of the feudal society. They are strong and virtuous as the traditional Chinese women, and at the same time they also have the confidence and courage. ABC women refer to the America-born descendants. Such as the daughters in The Joy Luck Club. As they grow up in America, what they receive is the American education. They are real Americans, but for them, the conflict of cultural identity is more outstanding and the conflict between Chinese culture and American culture is more obvious. Just in this special circumstance, they constantly search for the feminine egos and their cultural identities.Women's subject consciousness develops slowly from silence to awakening and then to self-improvement. As their subject consciousness awakens they gradually realize that women are not determined by the destiny, they can make up their own decisions. After that they endeavor to change their marginalized situation that they cry out their own opinions bravely and fight against the discriminations boldly. As the Chinese American women, they also make great efforts to search for their cultural identity. Finally they realize that they should not only inherit the fine parts of Chinese culture, but also absorbs the essence of American culture, thus they can construct their unique cultural identity. In addition, Amy Tan artistically adopts various narrative strategies to explore the development of female subject consciousness. For instance, she adopts story-telling to break the silence. Story-telling also gives women the right of discourse and makes them utter their voice. She also employs various narrators to construct the women's identities. These all reflect the connection between textual structure of The Joy Luck Club and the development of female subject consciousness.In this novel, Amy Tan constructs new female images of Chinese American women. They accept the two cultures and absorb the essence of them; furthermore they endeavor to promote the acculturation of the two cultures. They not only have the virtues of traditional Chinese women, but also have independent consciousness and competitive consciousness. Only in this way can the Chinese American women enter into the American mainstream society successfully and then be the masters of their life.