从《喜福会》母女关系分析中美文化冲突发表论文查询

　　摘要：《喜福会》是美国著名华裔女作家谭恩美的第一部长篇小说，也是她的成名作，甫一出版即大获成功，当年曾经连续八个月荣登《纽约时报》畅销书，成为1989年美国四大畅销书之一，多次获奖并拍成电影。文章发表在《剧本杂志》上，是汉语言文学论文发表范文，供同行参考。

　　关键词：文化交际,母女关系,文化冲突,冲突原因

　　本文是以跨文化交际为背景，以华裔作家谭恩美的文学作品《喜福会》为研究主体，并综合诸多文化交流的理论研究成果，从《喜福会》中母女关系的角度，分析了语言、家庭、婚姻、和中美不同价值观之间的冲突。揭示了跨文化交际，特别是华裔在中美文化背景下的成长历程。展现了不同文化影响下母女之间血浓于水的亲情以及中国传统文化对华裔的影响。

　　1. Introduction

　　Amy Tan, American modern writer of Chinese origin, was born in Auckland in 1952, whose ancestral home is Guangdong. She has the most readers in the writers of Chinese origin in America. Her parents immigrated to American in 1940s, and she was raised in American culture. She was not only familiar with America, but also with Chinese tradition. The unique life experience offered great resource to her literary imagination and creation.

　　The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan’s first book, which describes the relationships between mothers who immigrated to American in 1940s and their daughters in four families. Mothers in the book are traditional Chinese women, but their daughters are raised in American society. Due to their differences there occur conflicts between them, which are the main topic of the book.

　　2. The Conflicts between Mother and Daughter

　　2.1 Language conflicts

　　Mother-daughter relation is formed by the family structure. But language difference is the first element which brings about the conflicts. In The Joy Luck Club, mothers speak a mixed language similar to “pidgin”. The mothers are not good at speaking fluent English, and sometimes they use Chinese in their talk. Contrary to mothers, daughters in the novel are all brought up in a totally English-speaking country, so they are equipped with good English. But due to the isolation from Chinese culture, they hardly have any idea about mandarin. As a result, mothers and daughters fail to communicate effectively which leads to the misunderstandings between them.

　　When Lindo tells Wavely (her daughter) the ancestral spirits in her hometown----Taiyuan, Wavely has no idea about it. Lindo feels very disappointed and angry with her daughter. So this leads to the dilemma----“We sank into silence, a stalemate.”(Tan, 1989: 183) Such kind of situation happens a lot in their relationship which accelerate the conflict step by step.

　　Mothers feel that they are wholly surrounded by an unfamiliar environment where English is the language for communication. It is even hard for them to communicate with their own family members. They realize that their daughters would become impatient when they use Chinese to tell a story. They try to use their limited English to talk with their daughters, and this also makes them foolish in their daughters’ eyes.

　　As time goes by, the conflicts become worse. Mothers and daughters give up the adjustment to each other. Mothers felt that they were looked down upon by their own children. The negative feeling they get from their daughters disappoints them. So the misunderstanding between them becomes more and more.

　　Meanwhile daughters have a sense of loss because they do not get any positive feelings from their mothers. Wavely thinks her mother as a strange existence in her life for which her mother can directly find out her sickness; she is depressed by her mother’s words and negative comments.

　　As a result, mothers’ poor English and daughters’ strangeness of mandarin bring about the failure in communication. Mothers and daughters cannot let the other know their feelings and opinions which result in their misunderstanding.

　　3.1.1 Family conflicts

　　In Chinese culture, family is of great importance to individuals. Family is cherished most by Chinese people. They gather around in festivals to enjoy the family atmosphere. Moreover, to the Chinese, mother is of great significance in family structure. Chinese tradition request people be obedient to mother and devote themselves to accompanying mothers when they are old. In the book, mothers are educated by this idea when they were very young. This idea is passed down generation to generation.

　　An-mei witnesses her mother experiences inhuman treatment from her dearest family. But when An-mei’s grandma passes away, her mother does come back to accompany her own mother. What’s more, in order to save An-mei’s grandma’s life, An-mei’s mother even cut her own flesh to be the special medicine. This scene really shocked the little An-mei. From then on she has this special knowledge of the mother-daughter relation in Chinese setting.

　　This value influences the mothers in the novel very much. They regard their own family as the center. Generally speaking, these four mothers spend their life on family. They take care of family members, and wish their daughters to be happy.

　　However, it is common in American society that children must leave home to start a new life by themselves when they are 18 years old. The concept of family to Americans is less significant than to Chinese. Educated by this idea daughters in the book seem to be cold-blooded to their mothers.

　　From their mothers’ view, their daughters marry and divorce without any serious thought. Daughters prefer to talk to a psychologist rather than to their own mother. They request their mother to give a call before visiting. Mothers get confused and want to figure out the reasons but only to find nothing but a completely American daughter with a Chinese look.

　　Mothers are disappointed and frustrated. They want to build the traditional relation with their daughter even if their daughters cannot understand, so they interrupt their daughters’ life, which in contrary leads to the contradictions.

　　3.2.1.2 Marriage conflicts

　　In the book,the four groups of mothers and daughters almost experience marriage failures. However, behind their failures there exist the conflicts between mother and daughter.

　　For a long period, Chinese are equipped with a belief that man is nobler than woman. “It is a rule in old China that husband is the god of his wife. Wife must obey her husband, and does everything she could do to please her husband.”(杨凤,2007:149) The unequal relationship still exists in modern Chinese society. When mothers are young, they all live in a time that parents’ and matchmakers’ words matter most in their marriage. As a result, these words force them into a marriage in which they feel unhappy.

　　Yingying is forced to marry a man by her parents. She does get a kind of “love” from her husband. But things get worse later. She is neglected and cheated by her husband. She suffers great pain in this so-called marriage. Instead of escaping from it, she still chooses to tolerate the bad behavior of her husband.

　　Although mothers finally got rid of the tragic marriage in different ways, deep in their mind they still have the traditional Chinese idea.

　　On the other hand, in western culture, the relationship of husband and wife is thought to be romantic and equal. They believe that marriage is based on true love and is a private matter. Growing up in American society, the daughters want to enter the western life to differ themselves from their mothers. In order to achieve the goal, they only follow the feeling in their heart and pay no attention to the existing problems.

　　They intend to marry white people rather than the yellow people preferred by their mother. “Because they think that Chinese man is a barrier on their way to western culture.”(李贵苍, 2006: 244) In order to adjust to their western husband, they urged themselves to get accustomed to the western culture, such as AA system in family expense. They really try their best to keep their marriage on, and deny the interruption from their mother.

　　However, in Chinese tradition, marriage is a big thing to all family members. All people in the family care about the marriage of one member. They even make comment on the marriage. So mothers want to aid their daughters in their marriage, which makes their daughters annoyed.

　　Because of the different opinions on marriage, mothers and daughters often have troubles with each other. Daughters do not turn to their mother when they have troubles, and they even think their mothers’ help is on bad purpose. As a result, the conflicts over marriage issues become evident, and really do harm to their relationships.

　　4. Reasons accounting for the conflicts

　　4.1 Culture environment

　　In the book, mothers grow up in the reserved, feudal and fatuous China which is out of date. All of these contribute to the formation of their character. They learn to be a good girl who is obedient to their parents and husband at a very young age. They are taught that it is unacceptable to have their own ideas, let alone speaking them out. “All the four Joy Luck mothers acknowledge the existence of a system of matrilineage and have a strong sense of generational continuity” (石平萍，2004: 125) In order to realize the generational continuity, mothers devote themselves to their relatives.

　　On the contrary, daughters who were raised in American style have no idea of the traditional Chinese rules. What they have learned is that everybody is born equal. They have the rights to decide their career and marriage. They live in an environment where parents and children are equal. For instance, Wavely’s friend tells her to object her mother directly which is thought to be crazy and mad in Chinese culture.

　　The difference of culture environment makes mothers and daughters unable to learn each other, which devotes to their conflicts in the end.

　　4.2 Life experience

　　Mothers in the book live a better life after going through the war, the death of their relatives and the failure of their marriage. These misfortunes make them mature. They learn to be self-reliant. Life gives them the ability to solve those troubles. When daughters fail in their life and are confused about the marriage difficulty, only mother could figure out directly.

　　However, due to the lack of life experience, daughters are in a situation of lost when they are in trouble. They could turn to their mother, but this violates the common rule in their society. And they want to be independent and then refuse the help of their mothers. They figure out problems on their own.

　　Here comes a dilemma that mothers are so warm hearted to help their daughters while the daughters keep denying. Then the conflicts are strengthened.

　　6. Conclusion

　　The paper unfolds the conflicts between mothers and daughters over language, family, and marriage issues.

　　Generally speaking, all the conflicts are caused by their differences in cultural environments and life experiences. Due to their different cultural environments and life experiences, mothers and daughters form conflicts over language, family, and marriage.

　　In order to solve the problems and conflicts between mothers and daughters, they try to change themselves to accept their culture differences. On the one hand mothers change their view derived from Chinese culture they are used to and adjust themselves to daughters’ American style. On the other hand, daughters came to realize mothers’ love and the Chinese culture inside their mind. Instead of denying, they come to reconciliation with mothers.

　　No matter what the differences the mother-daughter relations have, the core of the relations is a Chinese mother with an American daughter. And the subject of The Joy Luck Club is the great love between mothers and their daughters. Although in different countries, speaking various languages, holding values respectively, love still can be found and shareable.

　　文学职称发表论文查询：《剧本杂志》由田汉、张光年等老一辈戏剧家新手创办并任职的专业戏剧文学创作刊物。《剧本杂志》创刊于1952年，月刊，主编：温大勇。国内统一刊号：CN11-1499/I，国际刊号：ISSN0578-0659。

　　References

　　[1] Amy Tan. The Joy Luck Club. New York: Penguin Group, 1989.

　　[2] 李贵苍. 《文化的重量：解读当代华裔美国文学》. 北京：人民文学出版社, 2006.

　　[3] 石平萍. 《母女关系与性别、种族的政治：美国华裔妇女文学研究》. 河南：河南大学出版社, 2004.

　　[4] 谭恩美，程乃姗译. 《喜福会》. 上海：上海译文出版社, 2006.

　　[5] 杨凤. 《当代中国女性发展研究》. 北京：人民出版社, 2007.

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