Abstract ： The Joy Luck Club is the first novel of Amy Tan, a famous Chinese-American writer. The novel mainly describes the conflicts between four mothers who immigrated from China and their daughters. The novel set on the background of  modern American and old Chinese society reflects big differences between the two cultures. In the novel, four mothers represent traditional Chinese culture and four daughters represent American culture. The novel describes the conflicts between mothers and daughters vividly. These mothers greatly influenced by traditional Chinese culture brought up their children with Chinese value system, which leaded to the daughters’ dissatisfaction and created some misunderstandings. The problems deeply hurt the relationships between the mothers and daughters, but they understood each other in the end. This thesis analyzes the conflicts of Chinese and American culture from the following aspects: collectivism and individualism, filial piety and equality, ways of education, concept of material life, marriage value and ways of expression.

Key words: conflict culture marriage education expression

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction-1

2. The conflicts of Chinese and American culture-1

2.1 Chinese and American values-2

2.1.1 Chinese collectivism and American individualism-2

2.1.2 Family filial piety in China and equality in America-5

2.1.3 The way of education in family-7

2.1.4 Different concepts of material life-8

2.2 Conjugal relation-10

2.2.1 Different concept of economy in marriage-10

2.2.2 Different value of marriage-11

2.3 The way of behavior expression-13

3. Conclusion-14

Bibliography-14

Acknowledgment-16