review on joy luck club喜福会影评

Review on the Joy Luck Club
<The Joy Luck Club> is Amy Tan’s master piece. It achieves great success both in America and China. After reading this book and watching the movie adapted, I have got a deeper understanding of collision between the culture of America and China, as well as the dilemma most ethnic minorities have been trapped in. This article is mainly talking about the deep meaning of culture in the novel.
First, let’s make a rough summary of the novel. Four Chinese mothers came to America full of hope expecting to change their and their children’s fate. However, during the process of bringing up their daughters, there were always full of frictions. At last, all the four mothers and daughters sort of came to a compromise.
Then I would like to talk about the process and analyze the deep cultural meaning behind it.
ⅠFour mothers: representative of Chinese culture In the first part of the novel are the stories of the mothers. All of the four stories happened in China. That is to say the four mothers totally grew up in China. They spoke Chinese, thought everything in Chinese ways,
behaved in Chinese ways. Just take two of them as examples.
Lindo Jong: child bride.
Lindo Jong was taken to the house of her future husband when she was still young. This custom was called tong yang xi in Chinese (I can’t find an approximate word to translate) that existed only in old times of China. She was taught by her mother that she had the responsibility to protect the reputation of the family. This tendency was a tradition of China: mianzi. However, her cleverness and foresight saved her. She managed to get a big sum of money and go to America.
Anmei Su: the sacrifice of mother
Anmei Su’s story is about the scar. She grew up in a more traditional family. Her mother was excluded for marrying another man as his fourth wife after Anmei’s father’s death. Her mother then chose to committed suicide for her sake. In my opinion, the most obvious Chinese element that Anmei received was the spirit of sacrifice for beloved ones. It was a common characteristic in Chinese culture. Some brief examples: Jingke’s sacrifice for country; the story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai.
ⅡThe collision between mothers and daughters: the collision between the culture of China and America. Greatly against the expectations of making their daughters live a carefree life of four mothers, the frictions between they and their daughters almost left a nap that cannot be narrowed for so many years. There are also two examples.
Jing-mei woo and Suyuan Woo: follow or obey.
The biggest contradiction between Jing-mei and Suyuan resulted from the piano. The mother made up various plans to make her daughter a miracle at all cost finally choosing the piano plan after watching a programme on TV. However, the daughter was unwilling to play piano anymore after the failure in a show in church. Whether continue to play piano became the main divergence between them. I think that the conversation between the mother and the daughter in that friction was very deepgoing. The mother said that only daughter who followed the mother’s orders could live in the house while the daughter protested that they were in America rather than China. She was not the slave of her mother. This conversation reflects a big contrast between American
culture and Chinese culture. It is about individualism and traditional Chinese filial duty. And it is also about how to teach children: strictly or not.
Waverly Jong and Lindo Jong: whose honor
The rise of the problem between them was due to Waverly’s victory in chess match. Waverly believed that her victory was the result of her own hard work and it had nearly nothing to do with her mother. However, Lindo not only owed Waverly’s success to her assistant but also showed off to others all the time, which directly led to Waverly’s quitting chess. What’s more, this contradiction left a deep influence in the next several years.
It is another typical collision between the culture of America and China. In the view of traditional Chinese, daughters kind of belong to their mother. We can say, daughters are part of the possessions of their mother. In America, children are individuals. What they achieve is the result of their own deeds. Besides, another difference is also reflected. Chinese mothers have a special passion for cultivating a so-called successful child. America mothers are not that crazy about their children’s success. What they only want to do is help their children find true themselves,
be interested in what they do and be happy with how they live. It was a huge difference both in the past and present. Ⅲ The compromise between mothers and daughters: the mix of the culture of China and America.
Luckily, no matter how difficult a problem may seem, there is always a key to it. That is what I am going to talk about. In the end of the story, all the four mothers and daughters finally understood each other and made a compromise in different degrees.
Jing-mei Woo and Suyuan Woo：the dream of return. When Suyuan was in China, she had to abandon two twin daughters. The twin girls then became a pity all her life. In her later years, she still dreamed of returning China and finding her lost daughters. After she died, Jing-mei Woo realized the dream of her mother by going to China and finding her sisters with the help of the members in joy luck club. Before that, she firmly believed that she was American instead of Chinese. She had no way to understand her mother and be understood. But when she saw her sisters in China and hugged with them, she suddenly realized that she was also a Chinese inside. When she talked about her mother with her sisters, the
invisible wall between she and her mother crushed down. It was a symbol of the friendly mix of Chinese culture and American culture.
Waverly Jong and Lindo Jong: American husband.
On the matter of marriage, Waverly showed her Chinese characteristic. Before she got married to Rich, she just couldn’t find a way to tell her mother about it. She didn’t want to annoy her mother. That means she was still not a total American. She cared about the filial duty.
What about Lindo? She also made a compromise. Though she preferred a Chinese son-in-law, she accepted Rich. Waverly’s happiness, in fact, was what Lindo cared most.
We can say, through this marriage, Waverly and Lindo finally made up and understood each other. The invisible wall between also crushed down.
America is country with various nations and cultures. But we cannot deny that white ethnic is the dominative ethnic and European culture is the dominative culture. Therefore, people from other nations are often at a loss where their root is especially the second generation who born in America. The reason why this novel is so popular in
America is not only that it reflects this problem but also provides a way to get out of this dilemma. Just like the four mothers and four daughters at last understand each other, various nations with different cultures can find a way of getting along well with each other.。