Abstract Amy Tan is regarded as one of the most prominent Chinese American writers. Her first novel The Joy Luck Club has aroused extensive attention and favorable comments from American literary circles since its publication. In this novel she narrates four pairs of mothers and daughters’ respective stories from the first person point of view. Through these stories, it explores the identity issue of Chinese American women. The thesis will focus on illustrating what obstacles these Chinese American women faced and how they recognize, search for their identity and inherit Chinese culture to rebuild themselves. It analyzes the Chinese American women’s obstacles from three aspects—race, the understanding between mothers and daughters and gender. In order to rebuild them self by searching for their true identity, these Chinese women adopt different methods, which will be summarized into three parts: gaining implications from mothers’ stories, root searching and the inheritance of Chinese cultural tradition. Besides, the implications are so important to the new generation immigrants from the experience of the Chinese American women in The Joy Luck Club. With these helps, the new generations will have a better future. At last, the thesis concludes that Chinese American women cannot be identified as pure Chinese, nor pure American, but Chinese American. To find such an identity, they must correct the attitude and combine Chinese culture and American culture together, which in a way represent the trend of cultural development in the 21st century.
Key Words: identity seeking, self rebuilding, Chinese American women
摘要
谭恩美，一位杰出的华裔美国作家。她的第一部小说《喜福会》一经出版就引起了美国文坛的广泛关注和好评。《喜福会》用第一人称视角讲述了四对母女各自的关系。通过这些故事，他探究了华裔女性的身份问题。本文旨在揭示华裔女性所面对的生活中的困难与坎坷，他们是如何自我认知并寻找到他们的真实身份的，以及他们对中国文化的传承来重塑自我。论文从种族、母女间的理解、性别三个方面对华裔女性的生活困难与坎坷做了分析。为了寻找他们的真实身份，这些华裔女性采取了不同的方法，论文将之概括成三个方面：母亲故事的启发、寻根、传承中华文化传统。《喜福会》小说中的华裔女性的经历对于新一代的华裔来说是尤为珍贵的。新一代的华裔在前人的铺垫下加以借鉴将会有更好的明天。最后，文章得出结论：华裔女性不能成为纯粹的中国人，也不能成为纯粹的美国人，他们的身份是华裔美国人。为了找到这种身份，他们必须改变已有的纯美国人态度，并将中美两种文化很好的相结合，这也从一定程度上反映了二十一世纪文化发展的一种趋势。
关键词：身份寻求；自我重塑；华裔女性CONTENTS9149
Acknowledgements.i
Abstract.ii
摘要.iii
1 Introduction.    1
2 Sadness—The Obstacles of the Self Rebuilding in Western Cultures    3
2.1 The Obstacle in Race..3
2.2 The Obstacle in Understanding between Mothers and Daughters.4
2.3 The Obstacle in Gender..5
2.4 The Outcome of Daughters’ Self-identifying in the Obstacles6

3 Happiness—The Gaining of the Self Rebuilding in Double Cultures.8
3.1 The Self Rebuilding through the Joy Luck Mothers’ Stories8
3.2 The Self Rebuilding through the Root Searching in Chinese Cultures..9
3.3 The Self Rebuilding through the Inheritance of Chinese Cultural Tradition..11
3.4 The Chinese American Daughters’ Understanding through the Identity Searching.12

4 The Implications for the New Generation Immigrants from the Daughters in The Joy Luck Club.14
4.1 Having a Good Command of Language14
4.2 Breaking Silence and Bravely Uttering Their Own Voice..15 论《喜福会》中悲与喜之下的自我重塑:http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_7768.html