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《喜福会》中母爱主题的文化阐释美文学毕业(2)

2013-05-04 01:25 Second, the Joy Luck Club mothers criticize their daughters much more instead of praising them more like the American mothers. In their eyes, if they want their children to have power and skills so that they can survive in the fiercely competitive society, they have to be strict with their offspring. For the Joy Luck Club mothers, in order to make sure that their daughters are powerful enough in the future, they are very strict with their daughters and criticize them much instead of praising them. When Ying-ying thinks that Lena can go to school by herself, she urges again and again: “You must not walk in any direction but to school and back home” (Tan 87). But too much criticism makes the daughters feel dissatisfied and even angry with their mothers. They cannot accept this kind of love because they are strongly influenced by American individualism. They cannot bear their mothers’ arbitrariness and criticism no longer. Some of them openly say “no” to their mothers. Jingmei, for example, voices her strong protest: “I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I’m not” (Tan 117). She even takes radical actions against her mother. In order to disappoint her mother intentionally, she discontinues her college life. And for Waverly, when her mother shows her off in the stores again and again, she can’t help shouting out her anger at her mother: “Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, why don’t you learn to play chess?” (Tan 81). The daughters can never understand their mothers on this aspect.

Third, they care too much for their daughters’life. The Chinese parents hope that their offspring will have a happy life. Even if their child or children get married, they will still pay much attention to their marital life, and want to make sure that their offspring have a happy life. For the Joy Luck Club mothers, their care and love can be reflected in the assistance they provide their daughters to solve their marriage problems. They never hesitate to help their daughters when their daughters have marriage problems. They try their best to pull their daughters out of troubles. Both Rose and Lena marry Americans. In front of their American husbands, they have a sense of inferiority. Rose does not make any decision on anything. Instead, she lets her husband decide because she believes her husband’s decision is always better. Gradually, she begins to lose charms to her husband who believes that she is shouldering off responsibility. He even proposes a divorce. Crisis also exists in Lena’s marriage. They fight to solve the problems, but they are too weak to work out a solution. At this critical moment, their mothers do not walk away from them but try their best to help their daughters. An-mei encourages Rose to speak up, “Why do you not speak up for yourself? Why can you not talk to your husband?” (Tan 176). When Rose takes her mother’s advice and does speak up for herself, she not only astounds her arrogant husband, but also saves her marriage. Ying-ying shows her daughter what disastrous consequences would happen if she continues to ignore the imbalance between her and her husband. In this way, she reminds her daughter to take immediate actions to get rid of the imbalance in her marriage. From the assistance that their mothers provide them, the two daughters feel the deep love as well as the powerful strength of their Chinese mothers, although sometime they may feel annoyed. Rose finally realizes that her mother is more enthusiastic and helpful than an American psychiatrist in pulling her out of psychological troubles. The American psychiatrist only makes her feel “hulihutu”. As for Lena, she finds out that her mother loves her better even than her American husband because her mother still clearly remembers that she never eats ice-cream while her husband knows nothing about it even though he has been married to her for many years. From this aspect, the Joy Luck Club mothers give their daughters a lot of help and comfort. （转载自http://zw.ＮＳＥEＣ.cn科教作文网）
In fact, the maternal love of the Joy Luck Club mothers exists almost everywhere. The four daughters come to realize that their mothers are always loving them in every possible situation. They find out that their mothers would express maternal love at any moment. At the crab dinner, Suyuan would not let her daughter Jingmei pick the crab with a broken leg after every guest has taken away the good ones. In Suyuan’ eyes, a crab with a broken leg is a symbol of bad luck. She does not want her daughter to suffer from bad luck. In order to protect Jingmei from bad luck, when there are only two crabs in the plate, Suyuan picks the one with a broken leg for herself, and gives her daughter the better one. Again, the maternal love of a Chinese mother is vividly shown here. The mothers would always protect their daughters and make any sacrifice for them at any moment.
In all, the maternal love that the Joy Luck Club mothers show to their daughters is brim with Chinese culture. In the beginning, because their daughters don’t know anything about their mothers’ motherland culture, they cannot understand their mothers, but after hearing their mothers’ experiences in China, and sensing their mothers’ sincere love, they begin to understand and accept their mothers. Although they have been soaked in the American culture, the same blood of the Chinese people in their bodies and their mothers’ love reminds them that they cannot deny their mothers’ culture.
III. Cultural Dialogue, Communication and Understanding
Because of the constant maternal love of the Joy Luck Club mothers, the daughters begin to understand and appreciate their mothers and the Chinese culture that their mothers represent. They begin to have cultural dialogue and communication with their mothers. Although they don’t have any special dialogue or discussion about the Chinese culture, the Joy Luck Club mothers try to grasp every chance to tell their daughters the knowledge about China. When Waverly and her mother have a dialogue about Genghis Khan, Taiyuan is mentioned. Waverly misunderstands it as Taiwan, her mother corrects her instantly, “I was born in China, in Taiyuan. Taiwan is a province of China.” (Tan 167). She doesn’t want her daughter misunderstand her motherland. On another occasion when some boys in Waverly’s class say Chinese people do Chinese torture, her mother corrects her daughter, “Chinese people do many things. Chinese people do business, do medicine, and do painting. Not lazy like American people. We do torture. Best torture.” (Tan 73). Lindo says these words because she doesn’t want her daughter feel unconfident in front of her American classmates. In this way, she tells her daughter that Chinese people are not inferior to any other people in the world. For them (the Joy Luck Club mothers), the offspring of Chinese immigrants are as superb as the Americans. Thus, through this kind of daily dialogue, the Joy Luck Club mothers instill a sense of Chineseness into their daughters’ hearts.

Thanks to their great efforts and maternal love, on one hand, the Joy Luck Club mothers gain understanding from their daughters; on the other hand, they impart the Chinese culture to their American-born daughters, which is of the most significance.   In the process of dialogue and communication, cultural barriers that cause   misunderstanding between mothers and daughters are being removed little by little, and in the end the understanding and blending of the two cultures are achieved.

（科教范文网 fw.nseac.com整理）

 Conclusion
Due to the disparate cultures they are born in, the Joy Luck Club mothers and daughters at first find it is difficult to have mutual understanding. However, as the Joy Luck Club mothers tell the daughters their experiences in China, their American daughters begin to know why sometimes their mothers’ behaviors are so different, or even backward and superstitious in their eyes. Their mothers suffer a lot before they immigrate to the United States, but the maternal love they impart to their daughters is not changing. The love is a typically Chinese one and differs from the love their American classmates and friendsreceive from their mothers. However, the maternal love serves as a bridge that links the differences and conflicts between the mothers and daughters.
To sum up, the Joy Luck Club mothers are the carriers of the traditional Chinese culture, the media of history and memory and the bridges that link the past and the present. Their maternal love to the daughters is laden with Chinese culture. It is just because of this maternal love that the Chinese culture can be extended; Chinese history and memory can be rebuilt for the daughters. Through the maternal love of their mothers, the Joy Luck Club daughters finally accept their mothers and the Chinese culture their mothers represent. And from a deep level, the maternal love in the Joy Luck Club represents the momentum of the understanding and blending of all the cultures in the world, which is a call of the new century.

 

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