An Analysis of the Mother-daughter Relationship in Joy Luck Club

Abstract

Amy Tan is a remarkable Chinese American female writer. The Joy Luck Club is her famous work. Its publication has aroused the upsurge of Chinese American literature and made great contributions to the mainstream of Chinese American literature. In the Joy Luck
Club, it mainly describes the process from conflict to reconciliation between mothers and daughters. How does the mother use the love story to let her daughter learn some essence of Chinese culture, and get strength from it to get out of the real dilemma. Thus, it points out that the integration of mother and daughter is a strategy that mother and daughter use love to overcome obstacles and readjust their cultural identity
to survive harmoniously in American society.
The four mothers in this article are deeply affected by the Chinese traditional culture. They not only keep the traditional Chinese custom and culture in daily life, but also inherit the typical Chinese traditional virtues such as respecting the old, loving the young and filial piety to the old. On the contrary, the young generation was born and grew up in the open-minded and free land of the United States. When the two generations grew up in different cultural environments, and finally conflicts could not be avoided. It also shows that there are misunderstandings and contradictions between mother and daughter due to the differences of cultural class and race, but through the mother’s self-report and deep love between them, the conflicts and misunderstandings are becoming resolved.
This paper tries to analyze the relationship between mother and daughter in the novel. Firstly, the author introduces the background of the author and the characters, then describes the evolution and development of the relationship, and specifically analyzes the reasons for the evolution of the mother daughter relationship. Finally, according to the reference of the mother daughter relationship described in the paper and the reflection on the development and evolution of the mother daughter relationship of today, the young generation expresses a yearning for a better mother daughter relationship.