Conflicts And Reconciliation In The Joy Luck Club

Edward T. Hall,an American anthropologist,firstly proposed the notion of High-Context and Low-Context in 1976. According to Hall, cultures are categorized as being either of high-context or low-context. Hall argues that Chinese culture can be classified as a high-context culture and American culture as a low-context culture. This thesis, guided by Hall's High-Context and Low-Context theory, attempts to explore the cultural conflicts demonstrated in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club. The conflicts experienced by Chinese mothers and Americanized daughters in The Joy Luck Club are just conflicts between two cultures, which are shown in different languages, different cultural values and different heritages.The thesis explores the conflicts in terms of the three characteristics of HC and LC, that is Individualism and Collectivism, Directness and Indirectness and Non-verbal Communication. It finally concludes that hybridity and reconciliation between cultures are both inevitable.