Antagonism And Fusion-On The Charm Of Tan's Narration In The Joy Luck Club

Amy Tan who has published four novels and two children's books is a very successful Chinese-American writer and won several prizes.Her novels are merely based on the themes of cross-cultural,ethnic and cultural identity and mother-daughter relationships.The Joy Luck Club is the first novel Tan wrote which took the relationship between Chinese mother and American daughter in emigrant families as the basic line.In the novel,mothers and daughters reconsidered and understood each other by talking stories in turn.The Joy Luck Club has won varied attention for its heart-warming theme, Chinese unique narratological techniques as well as cultural elements to display the dilemmas of female American-Chinese in American mainstream culture.Tan used both western narratological elements such as monologues and multi-angle collective narrative and Chinese traditional cultural elements such as Huaben and Mahjong-structure.By analyzing the narratological techniques employed in this novel, this thesis intends to expound the function of them in enhancing the theme of the work.The thesis is composed of three parts-Introduction,main body and conclusion.Introduction offers general academic background and current research situation of Amy Tan and her The Joy Luck Club.Main body is divided into three chapters.Chapter One analyzes the narrative techniques of Huaben structure and monologues which respectively belong to Chinese and western discursive traditions.Chapter Two discusses the structure of the novel including the connection to Chinese Mahjong and Frye's four-season theory.Chapter Three emphasizes narrative speech.Susan Lanser's notions of three voices are observed here:authorial voices,personal voices and communal voices.The communal voice was focused in this chapter,and the sequential narration was analyzed as well.The conclusion summarizes the main results of the research.Through the perfect combination of Chinese and western ways of narration,the mutual enhancement of narratological techniques and theme,Tan successfully brings Chinese-American literature into mainstream American culture.That's the narratological charm of The Joy Luck Club.