The Collision And Fusion Of The Cultures

Chinese American literature was formed in the early19th century. There emerged so many Chinese American writers in American literary world after the middle of20th century. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, a female Chinese American writer, was published in1989successfully and pushed the Chinese American literature to a new high tide.This book was the best seller in America at that time and got many awards, such as the Bay Area Book Reviews Awards and American Literary Association Award etc.The success of The Joy Luck Club not only aroused the interest and attention from American mainstream readers on the Chinese American literature, but also put forward an unexplored subject to the readers, that is the return and fusion is the final path of Chinese American culture after the collision of American and Chinese cultures.This thesis is mainly addressed from two aspects:first,"cultural conflict", the straits of Chinese women lived in the United States with the dual-culture identity. Mother represented the traditional culture while daughter represented the American mainstream culture. The dispute between the mother and the daughter is virtually the conflict of the two cultures. Because they were wandering between the two cultures, they were perplexed for their culture identities. The other aspect is "cultural integration". After a series of conflicts, mother and daughter at last understand each other. The mother changed the view toward to the American culture, while the daughter envisaged the brand of Chinese traditional culture on herself. The two generations-mother and daughter-mutually accepted the cultures which represented by the other side, which reflected that the two cultures had been integrating to a certain extent. They finally confirmed their integration of the East West heterogeneous culture. This thesis aims to analysis the development of mothers and daughters in The Joy Luck Club and discusses the relationship between Chinese and American cultures from the collision to the fusion. It looks the estrangement and contradiction was caused by the generation gap apparently. In fact, it came from the conflict between the two different cultures. The novel points out the experience of women in the field of love, marriage and career with different cultural background. As one of the second generation of Chinese immigrants in America, Amy Tan has been wandering the crossroad of Chinese and American cultures. On the one hand, the American born daughters expect to be Americanized from the internal to the external; on the other hand, they can never get rid off the Chinese heritage which rooted in their blood. It reveals the fusion of Chinese and American cultures is the harmonious way for the two cultures to exist.At the same time it shows the harmonious existence of multi-cultures to the readers.There are five parts in this thesis.Chapter one briefly introduces the life of the author, Amy Tan and her masterpiece, The Joy Luck Club, as well as the existing research on this topic.Chapter two analyzes the conflict between the mothers and the daughters, thus to reflect the collision between the different Chinese and American cultures.Chapter three discusses the construction of Chinese Americans’identity in the cultural collision and the dilemma of the two female generations.Chapter four mainly tries to interpret the fusion of the Chinese and American cultures. At the end of the novel, the conflict was reconciled, symbolizing the fusion and coexistence between the two cultures.Chapter five is the conclusion.