Abstract

The Joy Luck Club is a novel through which readers can see the collision as well as coexistence between the two cultures. In this work, the communication under different cultural backgrounds between the Chinese immigrant mothers and American daughters generates a lot of collision, but they get coexistence in the end. In this paper, the author analyses the continuous collision and the final coexistence of the four pairs of mothers and daughters from the theory of high-context culture and low-context culture, and aspects like language hindrance, individua1ism and collectivism, privacy and. harmony, so that readers can learn more about the differences between Chinese and American cultures.

KEYWORDS:culture; conflicts; integration; the joy luck club

摘要

小说《喜福会》生动地描述了中国移民母亲和她们的美国女儿之间的冲突与融合，以致更深地体现了两种文化的冲突与共存。通过这部作品，读者可以发现这些母亲和女儿们在不同文化背景下的交流产生了很多冲突，但最后达成了融合的状态。本文主要从高低文化背景，语言障碍，个人主义与集体主义，隐私与和谐等方面分析了这些母女之间不断的冲突和最后的和解，并更多地探讨中美文化的差异以及融合。

关键词:文化；冲突；融合；母亲；女儿

1.    Introduction
1.1 Introduction to the Joy Luck Club and its Author, Amy Tan
The Joy Luck Club is the first novel by Amy Tan and quickly becomes a hit among readers. As one of the Chinese-American writers who lives in both Chinese and American cultures, Amy Tan shows great concern to conflicts as well as integration between cultures. In this novel by describing the relationship between four immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters Amy Tan also penetrates into the relationship between the Chinese culture and American culture.
The four central pairs of mothers and daughters in The Joy Luck Club are: Suyuan Woo and Jingmei “June” Woo, Anmei Hsu and Rose Hsu Jordan, Lindo Jong and Waverly Jong, Yingying St.Clair and Lena St.Clair. In the story, the mothers recall their life back in China and talk about their relationship with their own mothers. The daughters also relate their stories of their childhood life and then narrate their troubles as adults.Although they believe that their mothers’ old ideas do not suit their own very American life styles, finally they begin to realize the strong impact their mothers exert on them. Moreover, the mothers struggle to offer solutions and support to their daughters and care about them with everlasting love, in the process also experience pain and confusion, and finally achieve harmony with their daughters.