Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club uses much characterization. Each character is portrayed in different yet similar ways. When she was raised, she would do whatever she could to please other people. She even “gave up her life for her parents promise” (49), I the story The Red Candle we get to see how Tan portrays Lindo Jong and how she is brought to life. Tan likes to show Lindo through indirect characterization. Lindo would always try to make things right. She would be polite to her new mother in law and when she was with her mother in law she would hold out a treat and say “ For you, Mother” (53). Even though Huang Taitai was not her real mother, Lindo would act as though she was, but before Lindo did this she would turn to her mother and ask for forgivness. This shows that she is a caring girl and she will always try to behave and be nice to every one. Tan also shows us how brave Lindo is. When it came time for the family to leave for shanghai, it was said that “the whole family except for Lindo would leave” (53). Lindo didn’t say a word. When the day finnaly came, no one said goodbye. All that was said was, “do not disgrace us” When Lindo arrived, she wasn’t given a celebration or anything. She went straight to the kithchen and started to work. Even though Lindo really missed her family, she knew that she had to stay and keeo her parent’s honor. This still shows that she was brave, that she is not a selfish girl. She is determined to please others. When Lindo saw her husband for the first time she knew that he would try to make things hard for her. Lindo’s husnband, Tyan-yu,was a great conflict for lindo to overcome. “He acted like a big warlord”(55). He would make Lindo’s life horrible by putting her down, and trelling her that her cooking was wrong. Even though Tyan-yu made her upset, she would deal with it. She would do what ever he had said withour hesatiating. Eventually she got through that phase. Tyan-yu was not the only one who Lindo had problems with, there was also Huang Taitai.
The fact that they’re 24 carrot gold indicates that she wants the best for herself and her new life. It also symbolizes her purity and strength as a person.
The character of O-lan was twisted by the circumstances of her life. Surviving adversity made her bitter, stoic, and wise. O-lan’s wisdom was from the things she saw and heard during the tough times. Without her stoicism, she would have fallen to pieces amongst the people who used Wang Lung. She tried not to let her bitterness get in the way of serving her family because they meant everything to her. In the end, it was her pride that held her together. Her pride would not allow her to give up or show weakness. Her pride kept her mind sharp until the end. And at the end, she had a husband who mourned for her, but only after her death did others really appreciate her.
In Amy Tan short story, The Joy Luck Club, she reveals personal challenges that hint the reader of gender roles in that specific society. Men and women each have specific standards and expectations in the society. The men are often viewed as the one who work all day to support their families financially. While the women, are often viewed as housewives that have to provide the basic and sentimental care to their families. The author shares that "The man who was my husband brought me and our two babies to Keweilin because he thought we would be safe" (Tan 74). Goes back throughout generation and even stories and fairy tales reveal the difference between a man and a woman. Times do change and so should people 's ideas as well. Although, people
Because his winter garments are torn and dirty, he opts not to wear them despite the cold weather. In one last measure to impress her with his appearance, he decides to wear his long robe, the only one he owns. Usually, this garment is reserved for feast days and special occasions. The relationship between them stays the same for a while. He appreciates her work ethic, both in the house and out in the fields. He seems very pleased that she delivers him a son and returns to work in the house the very next day. O-Lan knows how to make the most of everything, letting few things in the house go to waste. After the family returns from the South, Wang Lung discovers the jewels O-Lan stole from the abandoned house poor people in the city robbed. In a nice gesture, Wang Lung lets O-Lan keep two pearls. Soon the family begins to prosper from the land Wang Lung buys, land he could afford because of the things they stole. At this point, Wang Lung starts to treat O-lan differently. He is angry at her for having big feet, as a result for not having her feet bound as a child, and for being big boned. Upon his request, she begins to sleep in another room. The pearls that Wang Lung let her keep are taken from her
Wang Lung starts off poor, but happy. While he is not satisfied with his place in life, especially compared to the seemingly mighty and rich House of Hwang, Wang Lung is pleased to have a wife, Olan. Olan helps him in the fields, in addition to all of her housework, and she bears him sons. With her help, Wang Lung becomes successful and rich. His displeasure in his place in life is evident with Olan; while he is pleased to have her as his wife, he is upset that he cannot afford to have a wife with bound feet. Although he is disappointed in Olan’s appearance, it does not truly affect him until he becomes rich, at which point he decides that she is too ugly and he must take another wife, against his father’s wishes.
Just as Jing-Mei found what made her Chinese, Lindo discovered what made her American. "I was so much like my mother. She did not see how my face changed over the years. How my eyes began following the American way"(293). She is a mixture, no longer one hundred percent Chinese, yet she has held her culture with her throughout her life in America. "Not only traditional and not only modern, not just Chinese and not just American, but Chinese-American"(Reece). This is the same discovery that Waverly and Jing-Mei come to, they finally understand were their mother's have come from and the history brought with them from far away. And the mother's best intentions are no longer like the illusive mountains covered in fog, left in China.
outcome of Juana's loyalty to Kino. Her loyalty caused her to lose all that was
“I made the Huangs think it was their idea to get rid of me, that they would be the ones to say the marriage contract was not valid” (Tam 63). Lindo came up with the clever plan to say it was the ancestors who did not approve of their marriage and that their marriage was cursed. This was the last big obstacle that Lindo would have to face with the Huangs. She gave them three signs that were supposedly given to her from their ancestors and they believed her. In the end Tyan-yu ended up marrying the servant girl that had fed Lindo and Huang Taitai was happy with a grandson. “The Huangs asked only that I never tell anybody of any importance about the story of my doomed marriage” (Tam 66). In exchange for her freedom, Lindo had to keep the cursed marriage a secret. To end her journey Lindo also got things that would help her wrap up her hero’s journey, “I got my clothes, a rail ticket to Peking, and enough money to go to America” (Tam 66). Not only did she receive her freedom and keep her free will, but she also had enough to begin a new life in America as a person who was changed for the better. Her new beginning is a whole other adventure that she got to have, but for that experience she had the experience of her hero’s journey under her
...ould have had bounded feet she probably would not have been able to help work in the field. This shows that O-lan is being helpful into financial success of her family to help Wang Lung.
Set against the backdrop of post-WWII reservation life, the struggles of the Laguna Pueblo culture to maintain its identity while adjusting to the realities of modern day life are even more pronounced in Ceremony. Silko uses a wide range of characters in order to give a voice to as many representatives of her tribe as possible. The main character, Tayo, is the person with whom the reader is more than likely to relate. The story opens with him reliving various phases of his life in flashbacks, and through them, the reader shares his inability to discern reality from delusion, past from present and right from wrong. His days are clouded by his post-war sickness, guilt for being the one to survive while his cousin Rocky is slain, and his inability to cope neither with life on the reservation or in the outside world. He is one of several representations of the beginnings of the Laguna Pueblo youth interacting with modern American culture.
Mother-Daughter Relationships in Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club In the Joy Luck Club, the author Amy Tan, focuses on mother-daughter relationships. She examines the lives of four women who emigrated from China, and the lives of four of their American-born daughters. The mothers: Suyuan Woo, An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-Ying St. Clair had all experienced some life-changing horror before coming to America, and this has forever tainted their perspective on how they want their children raised.
Throughout Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club, the reader can see the difficulites in the mother-daughter relationships. The mothers came to America from China hoping to give their daughters better lives than what they had. In China, women were “to be obedient, to honor one’s parents, one’s husband, and to try to please him and his family,” (Chinese-American Women in American Culture). They were not expected to have their own will and to make their own way through life. These mothers did not want this for their children so they thought that in America “nobody [would] say her worth [was] measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch…nobody [would] look down on her…” (3). To represent everything that was hoped for in their daughters, the mothers wanted them to have a “swan- a creature that became more than what was hoped for,” (3). This swan was all of the mothers’ good intentions. However, when they got to America, the swan was taken away and all she had left was one feather.
Lindo knows that Waverly will never be Chinese. She saw how American Waverly is when she went to school. Since Waverly was born in America, she went to school where they taught western things. Even though Waverly may look Chinese, she does not act like one. Lindo knows that if Waverly goes to China, she won’t have to worry about looking like a local because she doesn’t act Chinese at all. I feel like that Lindo knows what is going to happen to her daughter when she goes to school. Once she goes to school, Waverly is going to forget about all the Chinese that she learned.
Huong uses a circular writing style to portray the characterization of Hang. As the novel flows from Hang’s past memories to the present, her feelings are paralleled with the different events. This allows the reader to see Hang’s feelings towards her current situation. Because the reader is exposed to Hang’s feelings, her journey to find her self-purpose is
At the beginning of the novel, Wang Lung accepts his peasant lifestyle, but still yearns for financial stability and happiness. Initially, Wang Lung’s life consists of two priorities; he must aid his aging father and tend to ...