Amy Tan And The Mother-Daughter Relationship In The Joy Luck Club

Amy Tan (1952) is one of the most highly acclaimed writers of the contemporary Chinese American literature. Her works are becoming more and more popular with the readers from the mainstream culture. Up to now, she has published four novels and two children's books. Her first novel The Joy Luck Club (1989) is a beloved international best-selling novel which explores the relationships of Chinese women and their Chinese-American daughters. In this novel, Amy Tan conveys the conflicts, communication and integration of the Chinese culture and American culture through telling the stories of four pairs of mothers and daughters.The theme of mother-daughter relationship has been further developed in Amy Tan's second novel, The Kitchen God's Wife (1991). In her third novel The Hundred Secret Sense (1995), Tan focused on family relationships and generational and cultural conflicts. Amy Tan has also written two children's books, The Moon Lady (1992) and The Chinese Siamese Cat (1994). In these works, Tan turned her attention to more extensive family relationships and cultural conflicts between China and America. Then Tan began to arouse interest in 'memory'. In March 2001, Tan's The Bonesetter's Daughter was published. Once again Tan succeeded in exploring the powerful relationship between mothers and daughters.This thesis focuses on Tan's The Joy Luck Club and makes an attempt to analyze the mother-daughter relationship in detail by presenting the conflicts, communication and integration between the Joy Luck mothers and their daughters and between the Chinese and American cultures. In Tan's writing, the mother-daughter relationship conveys profound implications. It not only reflects the conflicts, communication and integration of Chinese and American cultures, but also foretells the attitudes that different nations, races and cultures should take in the age of globalization ?understanding, communication and trust.