Lost In Translation

Chinese American writers have gained recognition and received considerable attention in American literature since the 1970s. Among them, Amy Tan could be the most popular, favored by both the common readers and some critics as well. Her first novel The Joy Luck Club, published in the year 1989, stayed on the New York Times bestseller for nearly a year and won her several prestigious awards.Mother-daughter dyad and its inherent conflicts and frictions are most important themes Tan has touched in The Joy Luck Club. Living in the big melting pot of the United States, the western culture collides with the eastern culture inevitably. Born, educated in China the mothers are deeply influenced by the traditional Chinese culture. They speak broken English or Chinese English. By contrast, the daughters, born and educated in the United States, are influenced by the American culture. They speak perfect American English. After their immigration to the new country, all the mothers want to forget the painful past in China and try to pass the Chinese legacies on to their daughters, while the daughters have their own principle of life. They cherish freedom and individualism and can't realize the mothers' selfless and unconditional love to protect them. They tend to fight the lessons their mothers try to give without consideration of mothers' feelings. Inevitably conflicts and tension arise between them. In consequence, both of them feel lost as to how to improve their relationship in the bicultural background.Generation gap, personality conflicts and social pressure etc, all contribute to the mother-daughter troubles. This thesis focuses on the cultural conflicts that lie behind the mother-daughter relationship and how the mothers and daughter manage to buffer the conflicts to achieve reconciliation at last. This also expresses Tan's wish for reconciliation and harmony.