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1、喜福会英文背景及人物赏析The Joy Luck Club (1989) is a best-selling novel written by Amy Tan. It focuses on four Chinese American immigrant families in San Francisco， California who start a club known as ”the Joy Luck Club，” playing the Chinese game of mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods. The
2、book is structured somewhat like a mahjong game, with four parts divided into four sections to create sixteen chapters。 The three mothers and four daughters (one mother， Suyuan Woo， dies before the novel opens) share stories about their lives in the form of vignettes。 Each part is preceded by a para
3、ble relating to the game。In 1993, the novel was adapted into a feature film directed by Wayne Wang and starring MingNa， Lauren Tom, Tamlyn Tomita, France Nguyen, Rosalind Chao， Kieu Chinh， Tsai Chin， Lisa Lu, and Vivian Wu. The screenplay was written by the author Amy Tan along with Ronald Bass。 The
4、 novel was also adapted into a play, by Susan Kim， which premiered at Pan Asian Repertory Theatre in New York。CharactersMothersSuyuan WooDuring the Second World War, Suyuan lives in China while her husband at the time served as an officer in Chungking （Chongqing）. She starts the original Joy Luck Cl
5、ub with her three friends to cope with the war。 There is little to eat， but they pretend it is a feast， and talk about their hopes for the future. On the day of the Japanese invasion， Suyuan leaves her house with nothing but a bag of clothes, a bag of food， and her twin baby daughters。During the lon
6、g journey, Suyuan contracts such severe dysentery that she feels certain she will die. Fearing that a dead mother would doom her babies chances of rescue, she reluctantly and emotionally leaves her daughters under a barren tree， together with all her belongings, along with a note asking anyone who m
7、ight find the babies to care for them and contact the father。 Suyuan then departs， expecting to die. However， she is rescued by a truck and finds out her husband has died。 She later remarries, comes to America, forms a new Joy Luck Club with three other Chinese female immigrants she met at church, a
8、nd gives birth to another daughter. But her abandonment of the twin girls haunts her for the rest of her life。 After many years, Suyuan learns that the twins were adopted, but dies of a brain aneurysm before she can meet them. It is her Americanborn daughter Jingmei who fulfills her long-cherished w
9、ish of reuniting with her elder twin half-sisters.As Suyuan dies before the novel begins， her history is told by Jingmei， based on her knowledge of her mothers stories, anecdotes from her father， and what the other members of the Joy Luck Club tell her。AnMei HsuAnMei is raised by her grandparents an
10、d other relatives during her early years in Ningbo after her widowed mother shocks the family by becoming a concubine to a middleaged wealthy man after her first husbands death. This becomes a source of conflict for the young AnMei, as her aunts and uncles deeply resent her mother for such a dishono
11、rable act. They try to convince AnMei that it is not fitting for her to live with her disgraced mother, who is now forbidden to enter the family home. AnMeis mother， however， still wishes to be part of her daughters life. After An-Meis grandmother dies, An-mei moves out to live with her mother in th
12、e home of her mothers new husband， WuTsing.AnMei learns that her mother was coerced into being Wu-Tsings concubine through the manipulations of his Second Wife， the favorite. This woman arranged for AnMeis mother， still in mourning for her original husband, to be raped by WuTsing。 The stigma left An
13、Meis mother with no choice but to marry Wu-Tsing and become his new but lowly Fourth Wife. She later lost her baby son to Second Wife， who claimed the boy as her own child to ensure her place in the household. Second Wife also tried to win over Anmei upon her arrival in Wu-Tsings mansion， giving her
14、 a necklace made of pearls that her mother later revealed were actually glass beads by crushing one with her teacup. An-Meis mother reknots the necklace to hide the missing bead， but now AnMei knows the truth about Second Wifes seeming generosity.Wu-Tsing is a highly superstitious man， and Second Wi
15、fe takes advantage of this weakness by making false suicide attempts and threatening to haunt him as a ghost if he does not let her have her way。 According to Chinese tradition， a persons soul comes back after three days to settle scores with the living. WuTsing, therefore, is known to be afraid to
16、face the ghost of an angry or scorned wife。 After Second Wife fakes a suicide attempt to prevent AnMei and her mother from getting their own small house， AnMeis mother successfully commits suicide herself， eating tangyuan laced with lethal amounts of opium. She times her death so that her soul is due to return on the first day of the new year, a day when all debts must be settled lest the debtor suffer great misfortune。 With this in m
