From Silence To Utterance

Amy Tan is one of the most prominent Chinese American female writers inAmerican literature. The Joy Luck Club published by her in1989took the U.S. bystorm. The novel panoramically shows a long-time span evolution of the ChineseAmerican women for several consecutive generations. In this novel, postcolonial issuesand feminist issues are skillfully combined together by Amy Tan. Amy Tan probes thereason of their silence and liberation of women, the way out of decolonization, so thatwomen make their voices heard, which reflects the author’s intention of post-colonialfeminism.This thesis is intended to analyze the novel by addopting the postcolonial andfeminist approach focusing on the theme of silence. The thesis is mainly made up offive parts, namely, with three chapters, an introduction and a conclusion included. Thefirst part introduction starts with short review of Chinese American literature history.Amy Tan’s life experience and career as well as an introduction to post-colonialfeminist theory. Besides, it also makes a survey about other studies on the novel, thusto point out the theme of this thesis. The first chapter deals with the Chinese immigrantmother’s dilemma and silence from the perspective of feminism. Being deeplyoppressed by the patriarchal society, the white-dominated society and their miserablesufferings in the past, the mothers gradually lost their voices and become silent. Thepaper described women’s sufferings under sexual discrimination and disclosed thecontradiction between genders. Chapter two analyses the American-born daughter’sdilemma and silence from the perspective of post-colonialism. The daughters try to beassimilated into the mainstream culture by denying the ancestral culture, However,despite all the efforts, they are still maginalized. It also discloses contradiction that ishidden behind silecne, more specifically, contradiction between two different types ofculture. So the state of silence must be broken, only through utterance can ChineseAmerican women get away from these oppressions. The last chapter is concerned withnecessity of and ways in breaking the silence. The thesis analyses the breaking ofsilence and the reconciliation between mothers and daughters, which reveals the American born daughter’s return to ancestral culture. Chinese American women’s newidentity was constructed through hybridity of both Chinese and American cultures.Meanwhile, Amy Tan appeals for the awakening of Chinese American women, bysotry-telling between mothers and daughters can they regain female subjectivity andreaccept their double cultural identities. After that a conclusion is drawn. The ChineseAmerican women could achieve the state of “Joy” and “luck” by way of articulatingtheir own voices, fighting against the oppression and reconstructing their doublecultural identities.