Review of Related Studies Review on Chinese Culture in Contrast with American Culture

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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter contains four parts: the review of related studies, the review of related theories, the review on Chinese culture in contrast with American culture, and the theoretical framework that explains the contribution of the theories in the problem solution.

A. Review of Related Studies

There have been two separate studies conducted on these two novels of Amy Tan. First, Yosepha Respati 981214068, who studied The Joy Luck Club, talked about the influence of mothers’ background on raising their daughters. She used sociocultural-historical approach. Second, Vini Sunadi 991214188, who studied The Bonesetter’s Daughter, analyzed the characterization on the character of both mother and daughter and how mother-daughter relationship was described in the novel by using the psychological approach. Unlike these two separate studies on the two novels, I made a comparison of the two, The Bonesetter’s Daughter and The Joy Luck Club, and analyzed the cultural conflicts’ effects on the mother-daughter relationship by using sociocultural approach.

B. Review of Related Theories

The review of related theories discusses some aspects of literature that provide important information in analyzing the novels. In this study, some theories are employed to analyze the problem: the theory of critical approaches, the theory of conflict, and the theory of mother-daughter relationship.

1. Theory of Sociocultural Approach

According to Culler 32, literature is a self-reflective context where people can reflect on what they had done in their life. Culler 32 states that novels are about the problems and possibilities of representing and giving shape or meaning to every experience people had. Literature is a social institution, using as its medium language, a social creation. Such traditional literary devices as symbolism and meter are social in their very nature. They are conventions norms which could have arisen only in society. But, furthermore, literature represents ‘life’; and ‘life’ is, in large measure, a social reality, even though the natural world and the inner or subjective world of the individual have also been objects of literary ‘imitation’. Wellek and Warren 94 As Wellek and Warren state that literature is a social institution, literature deals with society and literature cannot be apart from society. Literature represents ‘life’ as social reality. Literature also talks about the problem in the society and all the cases people can find in the real life. In this study, I used theory of sociocultural approach in order to analyze the cultural conflicts and the effects those conflicts on a family relationship. According to Rohrberger Woods Jr. 6 – 15, sociocultural approach deals with the reference of social and cultural background of literary work. It is necessary to investigate the social milieu in which a work was created and which it necessarily reflects on. The critics of this approach believe that it is necessary to investigate the society and culture in which a work was created. The approach insists that the way to locate the real work is in reference to the civilization of which the attitudes and actions of a specific group of people become the subject matter. It means, in order to analyze a literary work, we need to analyze and understand the social background when the literary was produced. The proponents of this approach analyze the sociocultural background that can be found in the story itself or outside the story in order to get the meaning of the study and give the esthetic response to it.

2. Theory of Conflicts

There are several theories of conflicts which were used in this study. They are the causes of the conflicts, theory of mother-daughter relationship which includes the meaning of mother-daughter relationship and conflict in mother- daughter relationship. a The Causes of the Conflicts Everything in this world has a cause and an effect. When we do something, we have to know the consequences of doing this. In conflict, there is also cause and effect. Conflict does not exist if there is no cause. Gillin and Gillin 260 state, “Conflict is a social process in which individuals or groups seek their ends by directly challenging the antagonist by violence or threat of violence.” There are four roots of conflict which Gillin and Gillin 633 – 644 state. The first is individual differences. Gillin and Gillin say, “Individual differences give different point of view and provide disparities which lead to clashes.” Everybody has unique characteristics that are different one from another. These different characteristics may lead to different points of view of almost every thing. Different perceptions then may lead to conflicts or clashes. This is where problems emerge. The second is cultural differences. They do not only prevail within our own society, but they also prevail outside our society. People live in society and there are so many cultures we can find in our society. Every culture has its own characteristic too. These cultural differences often make people misjudge another culture so that it may form conflicts between individual and also between groups. The third is clashing interests. Because everyone has different and special characteristic, he or she can have interests on different thing too. Because everyone has different interest, it may be a source of conflict. The fourth is social change. Social change may change and separate people into group which can cause competition. It can cause conflict. For example, if there is migration, economy change, trend, heredity status, social mobility, and frontier society, they can cause conflict. Besides, the elements of culture are developed by the society. Baron and Byrne 9-13 state that social behavior is shaped by a seemingly endless list of variables. They added some number of major specific cultural factors influencing someone’s behavior that have possibility to raise conflict and clash between one to another. The first is the behavior and characteristics of other person. The importance of one’s position in the society can strongly affect hisher behavior. For example, an employer will easily influence hisher servant by considering that the employer has higher position than the servant. The behavior and characteristics, which are not everyone have, could raise conflict if there is no understanding. The second is the social cognition one’s thoughts, attitudes, and inferences about other people around himher. It is the aspect that affects one’s thoughts, attitudes, ideas, and judgments on other people. If someone has a good judgment on other people, then heshe may follow or imitate others’ behavior. If there are different thoughts and each person stands on hisher own thought without receiving others, there will be clash. The third is an ecological variable. The term ‘ecological variable’ refers to the social ecological circumstances around an individual such as the condition of the environment, the house, the city, etc. For example, if a person lives in a place where heshe feels comfortable, heshe will likely have an unchanged behavior. On the other hand, if a person lives in the place where heshe feels hard to live, then heshe may have certain behavior that leads himher to change the condition to be better. If a person cannot accept where heshe is, it can be a conflict inside and outside himher. The fourth is the sociocultural context in which a social behavior occurs . Such factors as cultural norms and regulations will affect one’s behavior. Social standards or values shifting can influence one’s behavior. If people can accept the norms and regulations and be fair, everything can be alright, but if people cannot accept the norms and regulations, it can raise conflict. The fifth is the aspect of one’s physical condition in relevance with social behavior . The last is the physical condition of the person himherself. Hisher ability to accept any social information will help himher to change hisher old behavior and subsequently imitate or adopt another behavior from the society. However, if heshe does not have the ability to accept any social information, it can raise clash. Conflict can also happen in family relationship. Noller and Fitzpatrick 98 say that conflict occurs in a family because the family members hold a difference between them. It can be different opinions, attitudes, needs, and also goals. Noller and Fitzpatrick 99 add that when the members of the family do not agree about the situations in their lives such as one’s behaviour, one’s opinions, etc, there is a conflict. Disagreement can raise clash and conflict. That is why agreement is needed in a family relationship, as simply between mother and father. b Theory of Mother-Daughter Relationship The theory of mother-daughter relationship is divided into two parts. They are the meaning of mother-daughter relationship and conflicts in mother-daughter relationship. 1 Meaning of Mother-Daughter Relationship The strongest parents-children relationship is the relationship between mother and her daughter Noller and Fitzpatrick 267. Deutsch 222 says that the daughter’s identification with her mother is important for her emotional and moral development. The mother plays a role as a model for her daughter’s later feminity. In Chinese, a woman is expected to be closer to her mother than her father Hsu 63. As a matter of fact it would be regarded as unusual if a woman is closer to her father than her mother. A mother would have much more to teach the younger woman than a father. 2 Conflicts in Mother-Daughter Relationship Deutsch 322 states that a daughter’s identification with her mother is important for her emotional and moral development. A mother will play a role as the source of identification of her daughter, who later will likely develop her mental and moral according to her perspective toward her mother. Mother- daughter relationship is not always in harmony. Sometimes there may be some misunderstandings and conflicts which may affect the relationship and create a gap between them. Noller and Fitzpatrick 267 say that woman is more likely to see the relationship with her mother as a negative one. Woman sees her mother as a critical, controlling, and demanding person while man usually idealizes his mother. This different exists because of the mother’s attitudes towards her daughter and son. The mother expects more from her daughter but shows less appreciation on her daughter’s efforts. In contrast, the mother expects less from her son and appreciates more the thing her son does. Furthermore, they describe the mother-daughter relationship as complex, ambivalent, and ambiguous 268. The relationship is characterized by love and hate, high expectation but low appreciation, and high stress. However, the daughter still concerns about her mother although their relationship is not close and warm. Nadeau states that there are some causes of conflict that make the daughter feel not comfortable and want to live separately with her mother. First is the unclear individual boundary between a mother and her daughter . Second is the freedom that the daughter wants but the mother does not agree with . A daughter usually has wants that sometimes different with what her mother wants. It can raise clash and it can result bad attitude from the daughter to her mother. Third is the different view in their life. A daughter and a mother have different view in their life and as the younger generation, the daughter does not want to listen to her mother. She thinks that her mother does not understand what she wants. Forth is the teachings from the mother. A mother teaches how to behave, how to dress, how to talk, how to walk, and many good things but not all these good things are accepted by the daughter well. The daughter usually hates it and wants to do it by her own way. Besides, Deutsch 222 also explains the causes of conflict between mother-daughter relationships. First, the conflict arises because the daughter considers her mother as rival in getting her father’s attention and love . The daughter feels that her father loves her mother more than to her. It can be seen more if the father is a strict person or if he often criticizes the daughter. For the daughter it can be a symbol that her father does not love her and love her mother most. Second, the conflict arises because of the mother’s authoritarian power over her daughter . When the daughter finds her freedom and becomes independent, her mother feels abandoned and is afraid of losing her daughter. As the result, her mother uses her authoritarian power over her daughter and it causes the conflicts between them become more complicated.

C. Review on Chinese Culture in Contrast with American Culture

Culture is the socially learned ways of living found in human societies and that it embraces all aspects of social life, including both thought and behavior Harris 19. Culture is learned automatically. When people were born, they already had their own culture and it cannot be denied. Culture is not a thing, even a system. It is a set of transactions, processes, mutations, practices, technologies, institutions, out of which things and events are produced, to be experienced, lived out and given meaning and value to in different ways within the unsystematic network of differences and mutations from which they emerged to start with During 6. Culture cannot be programmed as a system because it is granted. Culture refers to ways of thinking and doing passed down from generation to generation Kane 162. Generation to generation means father and mother and their children and then the children and their daughter and son, and so on. For example, if the grandmother is a Chinese, the grandchild usually has the same culture as a Chinese person too. A Chinese person cannot be Americans if he or she does not have the ‘blood’ from American person. According to Hsu 257, culture in Chinese thinks about personality. Culture must be considered the dominant factor in establishing the basic personality types for various societies and also in establishing the series the status personalities which are characteristics for each society Hsu 257. Nanquin and Warski 80 state that woman in China is inferior than man. Since they are children, Chinese women have been bearing lots of expectation from the society. For example, at the age of five or six binding of young girls’ feet begin and it brings suffering to Chinese women, and also the cultural idea in China remains the isolation of women in the inner apartment as much as possible. As Kearney 20 states that in America, women have the same right as men. Especially in education, there is no sex discrimination. Women have the same right to get good education. This is as well as people with low social status have the same right as people with high social status in many life parts in America. According to McClosky and Zaller 123, people in America have the same chance and opportunity in any aspects of life. In Chinese, mother supervises every movement of the infant and freely feeds it whenever it demands. The father’s authority over male and female children functions differently. With the son the disciplinary relationship is direct, while discipline over his daughter is applied by his wife, acting as his agent. As Anshen 83 states, “The mother-daughter relationship has always been a close one in China.” According to Kearny 20, individual freedom is believed as the most important value of all American values. The individual freedom is also applied in the family life. In an America family, no one is in control of. When the children are younger they are usually controlled by their parents, but when they are considered as mature, they have their own right to have their own decision. In America, children speak with confidence in front of adults. They do not have any fear or shyness but they enjoy the relationship because they are brought up in American liberal ways. Children in America are free to develop themselves. Americans are equal in their relationship with people, regardless of their age, wealth, or social position. Marriages in China are arranged by the matchmaker. The matchmaker has a hard job to arrange the engagement for the two families. Here, the matchmaker has to consider the social status of the two families, economical, and personal factors such as family wealth and individual character. According to Smith 255, Chinese marriage is literary ‘made in Heaven’, and therefore the eight characters that marked the time of birth for the bride and groom has to be compliable. Ancestors are consulted at various diviners whose prosperous days for various virtual acts connected with marriage. About marriage, Anshen 75 says that in traditional China, marriage might be determined even before the prospective life partners were born. It began with no courtship but with an agreement between two pairs of parents. In comparison with American culture, Anshen 84 also states that though romantic love in marriage has been emphasized by a majority of the younger generation, most Chinese marriages seem to lack the warmth, the feeling of sexual intimacy, and the demonstrativeness which are familiar to husbands and wives in the United States. According to Sirjamaki 57, in America, when a man and a woman marry, they form an association unlike any other society. The relationship is close and full of intimacy. They fashion a life together marked by constant companionship, mutual loyalty, and sexual gratification. Sirjamaki 57 also states that marriages in America should be based on mutual affection and free choices of spouses. Sirjamaki 67 states that in America, persons have to meet and know each other before they can marry. In America, boy and girl meet somewhere in the places and events of their community, and date each other. Dating is important way to know each other and to develop between the unmarried persons Sirjamaki 61. By dating, persons can know the character each other and decide what they should do in the next step. If the dating matures into courtship, finally, they decide to marry and become formally engaged Sirjamaki 65. Meyer 42 states that the Chinese is considered as superstitious people, for supernatural things influence their daily life. The Chinese has never made the separation between myth and reality as Westerners do. They believe that everything that happens is the result of their obedience to their ancestors or gods in the past. Chinese people believe that ghost could help them in anything 137. Ghost will tell any best thing they should do in their life. Nanquin and Rawski 81 add that in China, after death, the spirit of deceased relatives representing by wooden tablets are cared for by their descendant on a daily basis supplemented by offering at the grave at regular intervals, and given special anniversaries of the death. In Chinese, the superstition has become a part of the culture. Most of people who live in modern way lost their traditional way of life. Bloomfield 187 explains more that Chinese people have so many ways to understand their future. It can come from fortune-teller or many other things like the ghost of great-grandparents, etc. They may know what job is suitable for them 229, what way to avoid bad luck, what food should be eaten and not to be eaten to make good harmony in their life 269, and many more. By believing the myth, the way of worship, the way of connected with died people, and many other spiritual things, they believe that their life will be easier and comfortable. There are none who are able to disturb them and their house is clean from bad things. They keep their tradition to keep their balance in life and keep happy. According to Bloomfield 85, comparing with Chinese people, it seems that there are no other communities, including American, which strongly connect with dead people and ghost. Chinese people strongly keep their belief and their traditional practice and they can bring it until this century in Australia, England, even Canada. Kearny 26 states that one of the American values is hard working. American people tend to be hard working to achieve their wealth and their economic development. American people do not believe in superstitious or supernatural things as Chinese people but they believe in hard working, effort, and many logical things. Americans tend to have modern thought.

D. Theoretical Framework