喜福会中的文化冲突

Amy Tan was a famous American-Chinese writer. The Joy Luck Club, as her first wor k,become successful as soon as it was released.

However, their daughters were born in and grew up in America. They were affected b y the American culture and education. Different backgrounds and languages had made them misunderstand each other even hurt each other. Because of the differences in ed ucation and valuation towards equality and family, the mothers and daughters became estranged while they should have been the closest persons. In the end, when the dau ghters finally understood the “Chinese-style Maternal Love” that their mothers have given to them, the collision of two obviously different cultures are easing. The paper a nalyzes the cultural differences from the aspects such as Chinese traditional thoughts, cultural clash and cultural fusion shown in the movie.

This paper is the discussion about the the mother-daughter collision between Chinese and American cultures, it is divided into three parts:

I. The conflicts between Chinese and western culture

From a cultural perspective, the first part of the film through the relationship between the four pairs of mothers and daughters, present the two kinds of collisions between Chinese western culture and conflict, the second part describes the relationship between the mother and daughter from the conflict to the final combination. The differences between Chinese traditional ideas and American values are one of the main causes of the conflict between Chinese immigrant mothers and their American daughters. This paper is mainly discussed from the conflict and combination of the Joy Luck Club ", so as to deepen the readers' understanding and acceptance of the work.

1. The word "family" is endowed with different meanings. In China's traditional ideas, the family represents the absolute power of parents to their children. The child is a parent's subsidiary, and the parents must be absolutely obedient with children living in the control of their parents. At the same time, the family also means that the relationship between the parents and children and the child is the continuation of family life, bearing the honor of the family.And the independent and individualistic values of American traditional culture encourages individuals to struggle, emphasize self realization and independent consciousness.

2.Chinese people attach great importance to the family's collective strength, the American people believe in individualism; family is the whole world of mother . She find their own life through her daughter’s life and expected through her daughter's achievements to compensate for their own frustrated life, and her daughter is convinced that "I am what i am" and refused to intervene. The relationship between Chinese mother and American daughter, which reflects the conflict and contradiction of the different values of the Chinese family's "mutual dependence" and "individual struggle" of American culture. Home for the two generations of mother and daughter is a completely different concept

II.The fusion of Chinese and western culture

In fact, the conflict between mother and daughter is only a representation, the implication is sincere expectations from mother to daughter , mutual love and