| Abstract: | Via a study of The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan's first effort, this essay discusses the cultural conflicts and compatibility between the East and the West as manifested by the conflicts and compatibility between two generations of Chinese Americans in the novel. The paper argues that different living environments, different cultural heritages of the East and the West as well as different values are the main causes of the mother-daughter conflicts in the novel. The paper concludes that these causes could also be regarded as the root of the cultural conflicts between the East and the West in general. More importantly, after a series of efforts, the two generations are in harmony, which stands for the cultural compatibility between the East and the West. |
