Abstract

Amy Tan, one of distinguished Chinese American female writers, has published a lot of excellent works so far, among which The Joy Luck Club published in 1989 receives the greatest success and wins affirm from professionals and many readers. This work reflects the author’s own experiences. The novel describes stories about four immigrant mothers as well as their daughters .
The paper mainly analyses the daughters’ living conditions in The Joy Luck Club, and they suffer sexism and racial discrimination in American society. The daughters are unfairly treated whether in work or in marriage in a patriarchal society. However, the daughters chose to be silent at first. They have lost themselves to a certain extent. What’s more, the daughters are not familiar with Chinese traditional culture. Conflicts and misunderstandings are filled up with lives between daughters and mothers in their growth. Later, the daughters began to identify with their mothers and accept Chinese culture, and gradually they are aware of their poor situations in the patriarchal society. They break the silence and fight their fate. The daughters reconstruct their own identity through their own resistance as well as mothers’ help and encouragement. From exclusion to taking the initiative to understand Chinese culture, from silence to awakening, the daughters go back to arms of mothers and bravely struggle against injustice and discrimination.

Keywords:  Amy Tan  The Joy Luck Club  Daughters  Living conditions  

摘要

谭恩美,美籍华裔文坛上著名的女作家之一，至今出版了许多杰出的作品,其中1989年出版的《喜福会》获得了最大的成功，赢得了广大读者和专业人士的肯定。这部作品折射了作者自己的经历，描述了四位移民的母亲和她们女儿们的故事。
本文主要分析《喜福会》中女儿们的生存状况，她们在美国社会中遭受性别和种族歧视。在父权社会下，女儿们不论是在工作中还是在婚姻中都遇到不公平的对待，然而一开始她们选择的是沉默。在一定程度上，她们已经丧失了自我。女儿们不熟悉中国传统文化，在成长过程中与她们的母亲之间也是充满了冲突与误解。后来，女儿们开始认同母亲，接受中国文化，并且逐渐认识到自己在父权社会中的不利处境，她们打破沉默，与命运抗争。通过自己的反抗以及母亲的帮助与鼓励，女儿们重构自己的身份。从排斥中国文化到主动了解，从沉默到觉醒，女儿们重回母亲的怀抱，勇敢地与歧视不公做斗争。

关键词: 谭恩美；《喜福会》；女儿；生存状况

Chapter One Introduction
1.1 An Introduction to Amy Tan
Amy Tan, born in Auckland, California in 1952, is one of the most prominent Chinese American female writers. Tan and her mother moved to Switzerland when she was 15 years old because they suffered the great pain of losing Tan’s father and one of her brothers. Amy Tan studied in the medical school on account of her mother’s wish, however, she abandoned it and pursued a master’s degree in English Linguistics in San Jose State University. During this period, some misunderstandings and conflicts between Amy Tan and her mother generated. Later, she married her boy friend, Louis Demattei who was a tax lawyer. Amy Tan did a variety kinds of jobs such as pizza maker, switchboard operator and so on in college time.