Abstract

Love and marriage are both eternal themes in literature and other forms of art. Historically, in China and America, there are many films concerning this theme, notably, “The Joy Luck Club.” The film has reflected the differences of Chinese and American concepts on marriage in many aspects, for example, different forms of marriage, different attitudes towards marriage and their endings, which all result from the different cultural backgrounds concerned. This paper attempts, from the angle of the Chinese and American cultural roots, to analyze the differences in Chinese and American marriages.

Key words: concept on marriage, differences, Chinese culture, American culture

摘 要

爱情和婚姻是文学艺术永恒的主题。从古至今，中美两国都有许多以此为主题的影片，如《喜福会》。该影片反映出中美婚姻观诸多不同之处，例如：不同的表现形式、对待婚姻不同的态度、不同的结局等，也由此折射出不同背景下两国的文化差异。本文着重从东西方两种文化根源的角度, 分析中美婚姻观念的不同之处。

关键词：婚姻观念；差异；中国文化；美国文化

1.    Introduction
When we make a general survey of Chinese and American movies, love and marriage are always everlasting themes in them, because the essence of love and marriage is a deep manifestation of a national culture. Due to different cultural backgrounds, concepts on marriage between the East and the West are different to a great extent.
The Joy Luck Club is the first novel of Amy Tan, who is a female American-born Chinese. The novel quickly became a bestseller in the United States in 1989 when it was published. The movie “The Joy Luck Club” is an adaptation of that novel, which tells stories about four Chinese women who are all immigrants from their native China to the United States and their America-born daughters’ experiences. The older women are all aware of belonging to a minority that must struggle against hostility in order to survive in the hard situations. Their daughters are all profoundly affected by what has happened to their mother in the past. The Joy Luck Club is their association as well as the daughters’. And the older women’s tragic marriage in the old Chinese society and the daughters’ failed marriage in the contemporary American society all illustrate the differences in marriage life between Chinese culture and American culture.