the joy luck club -喜福会.pptVIP

Amy Tan——谭恩美 American woman writer； Chinese immigrants’ posterity; Biographical work: double identity; cultural difference between mother and daughter. Themes in the novel 1. Sacrifices for Love Many of the characters make great sacrifices for the love of their children or parents. The selflessness of their devotion speaks to the force of the bond between parent and child. 2. The Problem of Immigrant Identity At some point in the novel, each of the major characters expresses anxiety over her inability to reconcile her Chinese heritage with her American surroundings. Plot summary After her mother Suyuans death, thirty-six year old Jing-mei (June) Woo joins The Joy Luck Club. The club, which Suyuan founded in China during the war, consists of four women playing mah jong, eating good dinners, and gambling. Suyuan created the club as a way to improve the spirits of her friends during wartime. Her first husband died in the war and she was forced to abandon their twin baby daughters on the side of a road. Soon after, she met and married Canning Woo and moved to America. There, she restarted the club with three other women her age: An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair.. Recite 1 The old woman remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum. This bird, boasted the market vendor, was once a duck that stretched its neck in hopes of becoming a goose, and now look!—it is too beautiful to eat. Then the woman and the swan sailed across an ocean many thousands of li wide, stretching their necks toward America. On her journey she cooed to the swan: In America I will have a daughter just like me. But over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husbands belch. Recite 2 Somebody shouts, Shes arrived! And then I see her. Her short hair. Her small body. And that same look on her face. She has the back of her hand pressed hard against her mouth. She is crying as though she had gone through a terrible ordeal