Comparative Study Of The Joy Luck Club And Growing Up Asian In Australia

The Joy Luck Club (2006) written by Amy Tan who is a famous Chinese-Americanfemale writer is her masterpiece that has gained a great success the time it is publishedand won many awards including the National Book Award. Growing up Asian inAustralia (2008) is a popular collected works edited by Alice Pung who is a youngChinese-Australian writer. Although the two books are produced in different times andby different writers, both of their writers are female Chinese and have an uninterruptedconnection with Chinese culture. What’s more, both of them reflect emigrated Chineseliving in the society where the western culture is the dominant. Those emigratedChinese suffer from all sorts of injustice, mortification and they struggle in order to gettheir own rights. Thus, the two books are comparable in many angles.Based on postcolonialism and feminism, this dissertation is going to analyze thetwo books from three aspects:(1) subjectivity of the marginalized immigrants;(2)self-identity and cultural attribution of emigrants in a foreign culture;(3) features ofChinese feminists’literature. By analyzing the two books comparatively, the writer ofthis dissertation draws conclusions as follows. New immigrants who immigrated fromChina or other countries in Asia and their children who were born and grew up inAmerica or Australia are both marginalized by the main stream society and they losttheir sbjectivities. Only by their own hard work can they ask for some discourse powerfrom the main stream society and regain their subjectivities. Due to the influence oftheir original culture, new immigrants identify with their original identity and culture atthe beginning of their immigration. New immigrants’children who were born and grewup in America or Australia are affected by American or Australian culture from theirbirth, so they identity with American or Australian culture. In fact, it is impossible fornew immigrants and their children to avoid the influence of the other culture in theirreal lives. They unavoidably encounter the confusion of self-identification and culturalattribution. Reality makes them aware that they can find out the outlet of self-identityand cultural attribution only when they identity with the mixed identity and mixedculture in the third space between two identities and cultures. What’s more, the writerhas concluded the features of feminists’literature:1) Females are the subject of thebooks;2) The books reject males’hegemony and strive for female discourse power;3) The books show female discourse stytle—implication.Because the two writers have different experiences in their lives and differentcultural and social backgrounds, they create different characters that possess specialgrowing experience and life backgrounds. The comparative analysis can help readerslearn more about the two books and get more knowledge about the living conditionand the inner world of Chinese immigrants in different countries.