喜福会英文简介读后感

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2011 — 2012—2英语阅读（4）期中作业姓名_田小星—班级_英语1103班_学号_1101901307_得分_

The Joy Luck Club

The author of The Joy Luck Club is Amy Tan, who was born in Oakland, California, in 1952. Besides this book, she hasalso written other famous novels, such as The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bon esetter's Daughter and Sav ing Fish From Drow ning. In resp onse to the widely held opinion that she writes with a social aim—to portray the Chin ese America n experie nee. Through her writi ng, Tan approaches issues that are uni versally applicable to all groups of people. She explores themes of family and memory, as well as the conflicts of culture that arise in so many America n com mun ities.

The Joy Luck Club contains sixtee n in terwove n stories about con flicts betwee n Chin ese immigra nt mothers and their America n —raised

daughters.The no vel con sists of four sect ion s,each sect ion contains four separative n arratives. In the first secti on, four mothers, Lin do, Ying ying, and An mei, recollect their relati on ship with their n ature mothers

clearly one by one. However, their daughters' recollecti on of them will never be so clear. In the second section, these daughters, Waverly, Jing mei,Le na, and Rose recollect their childhood relati on ship with their mothers respectively. They tell their childhood stories so clearly and touch in gly that it can powerfully prove what their mothers worry about at least is partially unn ecessary and uni mporta nt. In the third sect

ion,

the four daughters n arrate their adult dilemmas —troubles in marriages and with their careers. Although they believe that their mothers' antiquated ideas do not have anything concerned about their own American lifestyles, but their search for solutions inevitably brings them back to their relati on ships with the older gen erati on. In the final secti on,

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the mothers come up with some practical soluti ons and support their daughters, in the process lear ning more about themselves.

After read ing The Joy Luck Club briefly, I have come to thi nk of something. From my standpoint, Suyuan' story is representative of the struggle to maintain the relati on ships betwee n mothers and daughters across cultural and gen erati onal gaps. The major con flict is that the mothers try to in still their daughters with an un dersta nding of their heritage, and also attempt to save the pain they had in China. The daughters, on the other hand, often see their mothers' attempts as a form of un realistic challe nging. Both the mothers and the daughters struggle with issues of ide ntity: the mothers try to rec on cile their Chin ese pasts

with their America n prese nts, the daughters attempt to find a bala nee between independence and loyalty to their heritage. Thus when Lindo fears that the America n and Chin ese cultures cannot mix, she is con templat ing the comb in atio n of two extremes. In reality, each ide ntity is mixed, just

as the American culture is not wholly about independence and liberty, the Chinese culture is not wholly about passivity and self restraint.