摘 要

《喜福会》是华裔美国作家谭恩美创作的第一部小说，充满了物质细节书写。这部小说以第三人称视角讲述了四个从中国逃离到美国的母亲的故事。由于她们的女儿仍然无法摆脱母亲的思想，导致了中西方文化与思想的碰撞。本论文从小说中物质细节研究入手，将这些物质细节视为小说中的重要象征，探讨这些象征的使用如何帮助人物刻画、发展情节，如何传达小说的主旨意蕴。

关键词： 谭恩美；《喜福会》；物的书写；象征

Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………....1

2. Demonstration……………………………………………………………………....2

2.1 An introduction to “symbol”....................................................................................3

2.2 Mahjong as the symbol....................................................................3

2.2.1 Mahjong as the typical representation of Chinese Culture....................................3

2.2.2 Mahjong playing as the symbol of the plot structure.............................................4

2.3 Feather as the symbol........................................................................5

2.3.1 Feather as the symbol of immigrant culture...........................................................5

2.3.2 Feather passing as the symbol of plot development..............................................6

3. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..........6

Works Cited………………………………………………………………………........8

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………...9

Writing of Things in The Joy Luck Club

1. Introduction

Amy Tan (1952－) was born in Oakland, California, just two and a half years after her parents immigrated there from China. Her parents expected her to be a doctor and part-time pianist, but she became a consultant to programs for disabled children and a freelance writer in the end. The Joy Luck Club (1989), her first novel, became well-known overnight and stayed in the best seller’s board for nine months. By the end of June, 1991, her first novel sold out 275,000 copies. It is believed that Amy Tan, along with Maxine Hong Kingston, may have opened the door to the era of the prosperity and success of Chinese American novels.

The Joy Luck Club tells the story of four American Chinese housewives－what had happened to them before 1949, their perplexity on American culture, the generation gap between them and their children and the conflicts of two different cultures when they tried to teach Chinese traditional culture to their children who were completely Americanized. The whole novel is made up of sixteen sections. Each person occupies two sections. Although arranged in separate places, the two sections are logically related. For the mother, it mainly tells the story of their experiences in China and their early life in the US; and for the daughter, it mainly tells the conflicts with their mothers in the process of their growth and their marriage and work. Though separated, most sections touch upon the relationships between the mothers and daughters and the communications of different cultures.

After the publication of the novel, it is deeply loved by readers and has aroused people's concern about it. Chinese and foreign studies have studied the themes, cultural conflicts, mother-daughter relationship and identity. There are also many comments on the construction of female identity from cultural criticism theory, gender perspective and diet culture to analyze and study this work. For example, Luan Chengcheng (2016) found that The Joy Luck Club adopts multi-level narrative and embedded narrative structure, and breaks the order of time and space cleverly. It makes the story move freely between reality and memory in different characters. At the same time, Amy Tan uses the first-person perspective and internal and external narrative perspectives to organize the stories of the novel. Xiang Yanli(2012) tries to use racism and feminist criticism theory to explore the relationship between diet and Chinese American women's identity construction in the diet and Chinese American women's identity construction, and reveals the food of the meaning of Chinese American women's identity. Hu Xiao(2010) tries to analyze the cross-cultural factors in the work in cultural factors analysis of The Joy Luck Club to reflect that the cultural barriers and differences must be achieved through the cultural integration and cultural identity of equality of cross-cultural communication.

The Joy Luck Club, the first novel written by Chinese American writer Amy Tan, is abundant with the writing of things. This thesis will study how the writing of things serves as the important symbols, and helps contribute to the characterization, plot development, as well as the expression of thematic concerns of the novel. The body part of the thesis will be divided into three parts. The first part will provide a brief introduction to the concept of “symbol.” The second part will focus on the writing of Mahjong as well as Mahjong playing in The Joy Luck Club, and the third part will focus on the writing of the feather. Both two parts will put focus on how the writing of things serves as the symbols, and how the employment of symbols helps contribute to the characterization, plot development, as well as the expression of thematic concerns of the novel.