BreakingheSilenceAnInerpreaionofFeminisminTheJoyLuckClub_开题报告

Literature Review 

Background and Significance of the Research

Amy Tan is a Chinese female writer. Her novels are female-centered. Her writing style is very delicate, humorous language, created a full and a vivid image of women. "Joy Luck Club" is Amy Tan's first novel. The novel tells the stories of four Chinese mothers and their daughters who grew up in the United States against the patriarchal society and pursuing their own freedom. The novel is full of  rebellion. The novel depicts the oppression of women in the patriarchal society and the depiction of women's freedom and rights, giving a high degree of recognition of freedom of women, happiness and the spirit of power.

Feminism is the social theory and political movement founded and launched to put an end to sexism, gender exploitation and oppression, and to promote equality of class. In addition to criticizing social relations, feminism also focuses on the analysis of gender inequality and on promoting rights, interests and issues at the bottom.

When I first read The Joy Luck Club, I felt that the mothers were repressed by masculinity in the old society. Women tend to remain silent. However, in the end, they broke the silence, eliminated the generation gap before their mothers and daughters, defended their dignity through their own voices and practical actions, and built up independent female identities, which proved their social existence. In "Joy Luck Club", Women's unyielding attitude toward men, their inner self-exploration, and the construction of subjectivity through their own efforts are also places where we should learn.

1.2 The research status at home and abroad

Feminism is a combination of women's practice and theory of women's movement. It is a belief and ideology of equality between men and women. It aims to transform the hierarchical culture and social institutions of the masculine centers and eliminate discrimination in the economic, political, social and cultural discrimination against women. The origins of feminism can be traced back to the Enlightenment before the French Revolution. As early as 1729, Clyde Ford from United Kingdom published a book entitled "defense of women's rights". In the eighteenth century, Mary Wollstonecraft of England, published "Defending Women's Rights". He believes that the primary purpose of women's existence is to be a rational person. In the nineteenth century, John Muller in the United Kingdom, portrayed the feminist point of view in the book of "a woman's inferiority." He points out that inequality in the law makes the marriage under the system of marriage as a master and a slave. In her masterpiece "second nature", Simone de Beauvoir highlighted the originality and pioneering of her viewpoint, with feminist ideas centered on the idea that women are not born, but become. Virginia Woolf, a British writer, wrote an article entitled "A Room of One's Own" in 1929, attacking ubiquitous gender discrimination and analyzing if women want to make their voices should have what kind of social conditions.

In the field of feminism, there are Li Jun, Wang Fang, Xu Huanrong and Yang Shuli "Joy Luck Club" were studied. From the feminist point of view, they analyze how these women from the initial silence of life, to the final break the silence, so as to successfully find the process of self. Li Jun mainly from the text of the four heroes: Aunt Lindo, Yingying aunt, Lina and Ross break the silence of action, in order to achieve self-dominant position. In the "Joy Luck Club" of the two generations of women, due to the influence of male culture, there are one or two heroes suffer "aphasia" pain. However, in the end, they all defend their dignity through their voices or actions, and build up their independent female identity, proving their own social existence.

In the field of conflict and fusion between Chinese and American culture, Gao He-shun and Wang Chen-hui and others studied the Joy Luck Club. They believe that different cultures lead to different points of view, and finally lead to conflict. The conflict between mother and daughter also reflects the conflict between Chinese and American cultures. Mother and daughter through the efforts to eventually break the silence. Expressing the Asian Americans struggling to achieve the Chinese context and the compromise between the US self, reflecting the Sino-US culture from the collision and conflict to the convergence and integration of harmonious development trend. "Joy Luck Club" Although the mother and daughter conflict, but the deep love of each other is no doubt. Through the misunderstanding between mother and daughter, conflict to communication and understanding, the art shows the process of collision, fusion, re-collision and re-fusion of Chinese and American culture, which conveys the belief that Chinese and American culture will eventually converge harmoniously.

In the field of mother-daughter relationship, Cheng Aimin and Zhang Ruihua and others on the "Joy Luck Club" were interpreted. And the contradiction between the mother and daughter has been analyzed. Both mother and daughter are self-centered at the beginning, and do not give way to each other. When they began to care about each other and stand on each other's position to consider the issue, their relationship was improved. Through the description of the changes in the relationship between mother and daughter, the author hopes to tell us: in the context of globalization, the older generation of Chinese and the new generation of Americans must profound communication, understanding and trust, can have a good mother-daughter relationship .

2. Paper outline

1. Introduction

2. Literature review

2.1 Relevant research on feminism

2.2 Research on The Joy Luck Club

3. Breaking the silence in The Joy Luck Club from the feminist perspective

  3.1 The causes of silence in The Joy Luck Club

3.1.1 Different cultures

3.1.2 Different ways of expression

  3.2 The performance of silence

3.2.1 The daughters’ silence

3.2.2 The mothers’ silence

  3.3 The expression of feminism

3.3.1 Breaking the silence---storytelling

3.3.2 Learning to shout

  3.4 The result of feminism consciousness

3.4.1 Elimination of the generation gap

3.4.2 The construction of female subjective

4. Conclusion

3.Reference

[1] Orville Shell. Vision of Gender in Victorian America. [M] New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

[2] Simon de Beauvoir. The Second Sex. [M] New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 1952.

[3] Tan Amy. The Joy Luck Club. [M] New York: Vintage, 1991.

[4] Voet Wendy. Feminism and Citizenship. [M] London: SAGE Publications, 1998.

[5] Walters Margaret. Feminism: A Very Short Introduction. [M] New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

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