A Comparative Analysis of the Novel and the Film of the Joy Luck Club from the Perspective of Postcolonial Feminism

Abstract

The Chinese American female writer Amy Tan published the autobiographical novel The Joy Luck Club in 1989. After four years, the story was adapted into a film of the same name, written by Amy Tan and directed by Chinese American Wayne Wang. Afterward, Chinese and foreign scholars studied from the perspectives of feminism, Chinese identity, Chinese and Western cultural conflict and the mother-daughter relationship. In China, few scholars combine the theories of post-colonialism and feminism to study the original work and film adaptation of The Joy Luck Club. The research finds that although the film successfully restores the main plot and retains the spirit core of the novel, it also has the following problems: strong orientalist overtones, de-emphasizing female narrative voices, and ignoring Asian marginalization. Through a close reading of the novel and a deep interpretation of the film, this article makes a comparative study of the two from the perspective of Spivak's postcolonial feminist theory and explores the deficiencies after the film adaptation. It is found that these deficiencies occur because the director is influenced by postcolonial cultural background and traditional patriarchy. He falsifies the women's right to discourse in the third world, making them unable to speak for themselves independently.