Mother—Daughter Relation in the Joy Luck Club

黃婷婷

【Abstract】Amy Tan was born in Oakland，California in 1952 who is the middle child and only daughter among Daisy and John Tans three children. In 1993，Tans adaptation of her first novel，The Joy Luck Club，became a commercially successful film. The book has been translated into 35 languages. The novel is composed of four sections，each of which contains four separate narratives. And each section tells us one story about one mother. This paper tries to explain the mother-daughter relation in this book.

【Keywords】Mother-daughter relation；Conflict；Easements

【中圖分類號】I712.074 【文獻標識碼】A 【文章編號】2095-3089（2016）21-0010-01

The scholarship of mother-daughter relations is a great contribution to feminist theory because it is a testimony to the strength of feminism. As a feminist strategy，the study of mother-daughter relations also explores the experiences of women concerning. Feminist issues such as motherhood，the mother-daughter bond，both mother and daughters share their desire to obtain autonomy and a quest for identities as women of color. This study offers opportunities to analyze the ways in which Asian American mothers and daughters construct and reconstruct their understandings of the self in relation to multiple inequalities within hegemonic social，cultural，historical and political understanding of the U.S nation-state.

The Joy Luck Club tells us a story of four mothers and four daughters. There are two parts of their relations，but the most important part this paper wants to analyze is their conflicts. There are many conflicts between mothers and daughters. For example，the conflict between Suyuan and June is mainly about playing the piano. The conflicts between Lindo and Wavely are mainly about playing chess and the ignoring of Lindo to her daughter. The conflict of Rose and An-mei，Lena and Ying-ying is about marriage and the attitude toward life.

These conflicts have many reasons. The first reason is the different cultural background. These mothers were born in China，and then moved to America，what deep in their hearts is the traditional Chinese thoughts——Feudal thought，“the three obediences and the four virtues”，male superiority to female，holding high hope to their children. However，these daughters grew up in America，all in their mind was the American thought，cozy and comfortable life，and free social morality. For them there was no need to establish with words and flaunt excessively.

The second reason is different cultural identity. Daughters were born in America，they thought they were Americans. But they took their mothers as Chinese，because everything about China is unfamiliar with them.

The third reason is the class distinction between them. The daughters were born and lived in the USA，they lived in a middle-class lifestyle，but their mothers lived in the low class in China.

The fourth reason is the language barrier. English is not the mother language for the four mothers because they were not native speaker，but daughters were born in America，they could speak English well. The language barrier makes translation and communication between the mothers and the daughters difficult.

After listening to their mothers stories，these four daughters began to understand their mothers. So the mother-daughter conflicts began to defuse. The most important reason for the change of mother-daughter relation is the kinship bond directed by blood. Mothers and daughters loved each other，so they are willingly to understand each other.

Reference：

[1]Wang Jianhui. Gender/Racial Deconstructions and Chinese American Womens Writings.世界文學評論.2008（2）

[2]Wang Jianhui. Narrative，Balance，Reconciliation，and Yin-Yang Philosophy：Perfect Combination of Form and Content in Amy Tans The Joy Luck Club. 世界文學評論.2010（1）