On The Theme Of Silence In The Joy Luck Club

Among all the Chinese American writers, Amy Tan undoubtedly occupies a representative position. With her four bestsellers, The Joy Luck Club(1989), The Kitchen God's Wife(1991), The Hundred Secret Senses(1995) and The Bonesetter's Daughter(2001) respectively,she not only enjoys the high compliments from the critics but also gains great popularity among common readers. Her first novel The Joy Luck Club stayed on the New York Times bestseller for nearly a year and won her several prestigious awards.In the field of literary criticism, the study to the theme of silence in literary works becomes an increasing focus of feminist attention. Silence pervades Tan's The Joy Luck Club. The novel narrates about the conflicts and frictions behind the silence between four pairs of Chinese mothers and American daughters. Silence is articulate and it does not mean nothing is said. It can serve as a nonverbal expression in many conditions as in spoken communication. This thesis will apply Michel Foucault's discourse and power theory to analyze the theme of silence, and to reveal the conflicts behind the silence between mothers and daughters, women and patriarchy, Chinese traditional culture and American culture. The first chapter analyzes the silence of Chinese mothers and America-born daughters from three parts: the silence of language, culture value and communication between mothers and daughters. 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 cherish freedom and individualism and speak perfect American English. So inevitably conflicts and tension arise between them and lead to silence eventually. Chapter II concerns the silence of women under patriarchy in this novel. There are two kinds of silence: the silence of women in Chinese traditional patriarchal culture and the silence of women in American patriarchal culture by analyzing chapter three will be intended to reveal the culture conflicts behind the silence in The Joy Luck Club, namely, the silence of Chinese culture under American mainstream culture, especially for Chinese food and Chinese traditional beliefs. And the chapter will try to answer the question: How Chinese culture is put in"Other"position when it meets with...