Analysis of the Daughters' Process of Rediscovery in The Joy Luck Club

zwwx@overseaen.comISSN 1009-5039http://www .overseaen.comOverseas English 團别英}湄Tel:+86- -551-5690811 5690812Analysis of the Daughters' Process of Rediscovery in The Joy Luck Club袁凌钰(西华师范大学外国语学院，四川南充637090)Abstract: The Joy Luck Club, witen by Amy Tan, has got a landslide winning when it was published in the year of 1989. It not only atracts the westerm readers but also the Asian ones. Amy Tan wrote this novel parly according to her own living experience. Her mother isthe frst generation and she is totally growing up in America. She herself does not have a good reltionship with her mother when she wasyoung. What we can tell from the Joy Luck Club. This paper will reread the novel from the feminism aspect about the four pair s mothersand dughter, not only focusing on the daughters' ebirth from their mariage but aso on their rediscovering of chemselves.Key words: The Joy Luck Club; feminism; self- -rediscovery; voice power中圉分类号:1106.文献标识码:A文章 编号:1009- -5039<2011)10- -0298-021 The Poignant Past of the Mothershave asimilated in their mind. They don't even like their Asianappearance. Lena used to push her eyes "in on the sides to makeIn the Joy luck Club, the four mothers all go through verythem rounder," or "open them very wide," in order to make her-tough life when they were young in China. The first mother, Wuself much more like a white.Su-yuan, who is the founder member of the Joy Luck Club, wasThe reection of their identity is just the reason why theydead at the beginning of the story. She lost her baby twins inhave a tensional relationship with their mothers. They don't wantChina, which is her life pain. The second mother, Lindo Jong,to be what they mothers want them to be. The girl, unlike thewas betrothed to the Huangs when she was only two years old. Atboy, cannot repress the female part of her and totally reject thelast, she escaped from that house depending on her own endeavormother. Flax (1978) has maintained that because mothers andand wisdom. An-mei Hsu, whose mother was raped and left hersince her childhood lost her mother not long after she came toboundaries are not always clear, daughters struggle all of theirher mother's new life. Mother's death made Anmei was aware oflives to separate from their mothers. Conlict often arises betweenher identity crisis. She began to fight with the fate-- "On thata daughter's senses of a separate "I” and her perception of a col-day, 1 learned to shout”(272). The fourth mother, Ying- ying St.lective "we" (Lemer, 1985). It is a contradiction for the daughtersClair married a man who was arranged by her family. The play-to find their identification. After growing up, the girls fom theirboy cheated her and beat her everyday. At last, she became outof mind. She revenges her husband by klling their own son whoown unbalanced identification, which seeming mothers as "oth-er", as well as denying their own value.is only belonging to him. This terible memory inevitable made abad influence on Ying- ying's future life.3 Rediscovery of Their Chinese ldentityThe four mothers are all eacape from their old and patri-archy life which makes them have a renascence understanding ofChinese culture but cannot find the belonging to American cul-life after coming to America. They are not common Chineseture, neither. They reject their mothers but all get rebirth by themothers, in some aspects, their past experience made them havehelp of their mothers.different gnosis about the life.3.1 The Married Daughters Getting Help from Their Moth-2 The Daughters' Rejection to Their IdentityersAll the daughters have the problem of getting along withThese daughters, except Jing- mei, all meet some problemstheir mothers. On the one hand, they don't want to be whal theirin the marriage. Rose, who is an oriental angel, is always in dan-mothers want them to be. On the other hand, they hate to disap-ger, while her husband--Ted acts like a God who will alwayspoint their mothers.rescue in time. This in Said's orientalism iB助esentially rela-tionship of "self"' and "other", the superior West rescue the infe-mothers. Though they have the American - new culture insiderior East. So in their marriage life, it is Ted, the "self", who al-them, they are still living in the American palriarchy society.ways decides, while Rose, the "other" who always agrees, neverLena "worried that Harold would someday say "Why, gosh, youthinks of objecting.aren' the gir 1 thought you were, are you?" Rose also admit that"what I initially found atractive in Ted were precisely the thingson their right of voice, but other issue like suffrage, because inthat made him diferent from my brothers and the Chinese boys Iterm of the postmodemism, voice is equal to the power (li, 96).had dated." It can be seemed as an evidence that the racialismAs to Rose, she loses her "voice" by her own willing. So even中国煤化工收稿日期:2011-05-12修回日期:2011-06-08.TYHCNMH G作者简介:袁凌钰(1986-),女,西华师范大学外国语学院研究生,研究方向为英语课程教学论,英语文学。298■中外文学文化研究德安”栏目贵任煸箕:杨菲事2011年10月Overseas English 海外美治being told to devoice, what she does is nothing but keep silent.she noticed the piece on the right-hand side. Hammer(1976)sug-However, it is her mother, the person the daughter viewed as "gest that a mother, through her daughter, lives both her ownother", who try their best to help their daughters. Anmei encour-childhood and her own mother's identity; by identifying with herages their daughter. "you do not need a psyhiatrist to do this."daughter, she becomes "both her own mother and her own child."Rose ulimately believe that the "power of the moher's words,"Mother always knows her daughters even better than the daugh-and realize her own voice of right. She fights back her overbear-ters themselves. When the parents die, their culture inheritanceing husband with the sficient courage:" you do not pull out meis passed on to the Children; only now they must practice a poli-from your life, to throw away that easy."tics of memory in order to piece together the original patrimonyAnother daughter Lena, also get the same help from her(Boelhower, 1987)mother. Ying- ying always keeps silence about her past. But when4 Conclusionher daughter, Lena, encounter the mariage problems, she deter~mines to break the silence. lenz lost her voice in the marriageThe four pairs mothers and daughters all have their own sto-though it is seemed that they have a equal life. Ying- ying de-ries, their own life. Daughters, with the help of their mothers, re-cides to "use this sharp pain to penetrate my daughter's loughdiscover their identity and their value, in terns of Kristeva, wom-skin and cut her tiger spirnt loe." It is Ying -ying who help heren should give free rein to their "female ffect". "From the per-daughters to know much more about herself, a tiger like her.spetive of the women, women's consciousness can be understoodKristeva emphasizes that people have the right to speak. Speak-as containing two levels: first, the vision of female self- under-ing make people get opportunity to create. Women should makestanding, to define their own essence of the meaning of life anduse of the voice to change their fate and shape their own identityits status in society; second is from the standpoint of women look(78).at the extemal the world and its wealth to the women's lives to .3.2 Unmaried Daughter Wu Jingmei's Spiritual and Physi-underntand and grasp the characteristics" (Gunew, 134). Daugh-ters accept and understand their mothers, which is also a kind of●cal Journeythe awakening of women's awareness. Mothers in the Joy LuckAccorClub, help the daughters to find themselves, which is also helpor finished product and it can only be a process closing to imagethem to realize that they are dfferent and they don't need liveof tality. The daughters are just on heir way to find the identi-under others‘ control and they have the right to be what theyfication (Shear, 43). Another daughter, Wu Jing -mei, as the onlywant to be, say what they want to say.daughter of her mother in America, is put in the precarious posi-References:tion of having to go to China to fufill her dead mother's lifelongquest-- -of being reunited with her lung-lost twin daughters.[川Boelhower,illiamn.Through a Class Darkly:Ethnic Semiosis inThe trip to China becomes the way in which June WooAmerican Literature[MI.USA:()xford UP,1987.claims her name, and the other part of herself, Wu Jing- mei, that[2] FlaxJane.The Conlict between Nurturance and Autonomy inshe has never understood or accepted. June Woo sets about re-Mother- -Daughter Relationships and Within Feminism[J].Fem-discovering or reconstructing her American ethnic self. 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