Abstract

The Joy Luck Club is the first novel of Amy Tan，a famous Chinese American writer. In the novel, she mainly discusses the relationship between the four Chinese-immigrant women and their American-born daughters as well as their mutual conflicts. It is believed that the conflicts between the mothers and daughters are the representations and consequences of cultural clashes and generational gaps. In fact, it is the maternal love the Joy Luck Club mothers extend to their daughters that finally makes their daughters understand them and the Chinese culture that the mothers represent. In this sense, the maternal love not only symbolizes Chinese culture, but more importantly serves as a bridge that links the cultural and generational gap between the mothers and daughters.

Key words: Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club, cultural clashes, generational gap, maternal love

摘 要

《喜福会》是美国著名华裔女作家谭恩美的代表作品。在小说中，她呈现给读者的是四位中国移民母亲与她们女儿之间的故事。文章中体现了母亲和女儿之间的冲突主要是文化冲突和代沟的表现和结果。事实上，正是《喜福会》中母亲给予女儿们无微不至的母爱才最终使得女儿们理解了她们的母亲及其代表的中国文化。因而, 《喜福会》中的母爱不仅是中国文化的象征,更重要的是母女理解与沟通的桥梁，也是中美文化交流的桥梁。

关键词： 谭恩美，《喜福会》，文化冲突，代沟，母爱

1. Introduction:
Amy Tan emerging since 1980s is one of the prominent Chinese American writers. Her works always portray the Chinese American experiences. She explores themes of family and memory, as well as the conflicts between cultures. In 1987, Tan’s mother recovered from a serious illness, as Tan had promised that if her mother got better, she would take a trip to China with her, where Tan’s mother was reunited with her daughters and Tan met her half-sisters. And this incident provided Tan with a fresh perspective on her mother, which served as a key inspiration for her first book, The Joy Luck Club, remaining on the New York Times best-seller list for many months in 1989.
Since 1993, The Joy Luck Club has been translated into more than 35 languages and adapted into various feature films. The Joy Luck Club explores conflicts between two generations and two different cultures, and attempts to cover the topics concerning the control over one’s destiny and sacrifices for love. There are four mother-daughter pairs in the novel. The mothers were the first generation immigrants, and the daughters were born in America. The Joy Luck Club (JLC) mothers came from the traditional Chinese families when China was destroyed by the Japanese invaders in the 1940s.