摘 要

《喜福会》是美籍华裔作家谭恩美的作品中最畅销的一部小说。通过描写四对母女间的代沟和隔阂，谭恩美在小说中反映了华裔母族文化和异质文化相遇而生的碰撞与兼容以及华裔们在两种文化的碰撞中对自我身份的艰难探索。本文基于《喜福会》的文本，从跨文化的角度出发，分析了存在于女性家庭地位、婚姻和家庭教育这三个方面中中国和美国的家庭价值观差异。本文首先简单介绍了《喜福会》的作者：谭恩美，然后介绍了小说中的主要人物和主要内容。接着开始阐述小说中体现的中美家庭价值观有何不同，并且从历史原因、社会原因、高语境文化和低语境文化原因以及集体和个人这四个方面挖掘了产生这些差异的原因。旨在加深中美两国之间的相互了解，促进家庭成员的互相理解，构建和谐的家庭和社会。

关键词：喜福会；家庭价值观；婚姻观；教育观；家庭关系

Contents

1. Introduction -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------1
2. Demonstration --------------------------------------------------------------------------------2

2.1 An overview of The Joy Luck Club -------------------------------------------------------2

2.1.1 The author of The Joy Luck Club－Amy Tan -----------------------------------------2

2.1.2 Main plots and characters in The Joy Luck Club -------------------------------------3

2.2 The differences in Chinese and American family values ------------------------------3

2.2.1 Difference in female status --------------------------------------------------------------3

2.2.2 Difference in marriage -------------------------------------------------------------------4

2.2.3 Difference in family education ----------------------------------------------------------6

2.3 Causes of the differences ------------------------------------------------------------------7

2.3.1 Historical causes --------------------------------------------------------------------------7

2.3.2 Social causes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------7

2.3.3 High context culture and low context culture -----------------------------------------8

2.3.4 Group identity and individual standard ------------------------------------------------9

2.4 Implications for developing a harmonious family --------------------------------------9

1. Conclusion -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------10

Works Cited--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------11

Bibliography ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------12

An Analysis of Different Family Values in Chinese and American Cultures in The Joy Luck Club

1. Introduction

The study of different family values in Chinese and American cultures has been the focus of many recent studies. The essay is going to discuss this eternal subject based on the text of The Joy Luck Club. “The Joy Luck Club” is a party name for playing mahjong, named by the four mothers who emigrated to the United States. Through the description of the generation gap between four pairs of mother and daughter, the work reflects the collision and compatibility between indigenous culture of Chinese Americans and heterogeneous culture along with the cognition of cultural identity. To be sure, a lot of research related to this topic have been done by scholars at home and abroad. Nowadays, most of the foreign researches on The Joy Luck Club focus on explaining the meaning of the race, gender, identity, class, nationalism and so on in the novel. Although the comment angle is different, western scholars have given The Joy Luck Club and its author － Amy Tan of great interest. On the one hand, The Joy Luck Club has attracted many American white reviewers and most Chinese female intellectuals’ concern and acceptance. Amy Tan has also been widely praised. On the other hand, some critics hold the view that Amy Tan reappears and deepens the impression of the “other” to the Chinese and Chinese culture in this work. Thus weakened the combat effectiveness of Chinese people against discrimination in the white race. However, there are not many researches focusing on the differences between Chinese and American family values. Chinese researches on The Joy Luck Club are more than those in foreign studies. Most of these researches concentrate on inter-cultural conflict or the mother-daughter relationship or education problem based on the text. Yan Wenli has stated that family education is elementary and important for children. Because of different culture, China and other western countries have different family education(2015). Although the family cultural differences between China and America in this novel has been studied, there are still many aspects to be explored deeper. Therefore, the purpose of this essay is to analyze the differences between Chinese and American family values and the reasons for the differences, to promote mutual understanding of family members and to build a more harmonious family and society.

This essay is divided into three parts. The first part is introduction, aiming to draw forth what I am going to write. The second part is demonstration, and it divides into four points. The first point gives a brief introduction to the author of The Joy Luck Club － Amy Tan and presents main plots and characters in The Joy Luck Club. The second point focuses on the differences in Chinese and American family culture, including difference in female status, in marriage and in family education. The third point probes into causes of the differences from four aspects, including historical causes, social causes, high context culture and low context culture and group identity and individual standard. The forth point is the implications for developing a harmonious family according to the novel. This may has some practical significance for polishing our family life. The final part is a conclusion. It summarizes the content of the whole essay.

2. Demonstration

2.1 An overview of The Joy Luck Club