Amy Tan's “The Joy Luck Club”
The “Joy Luck Club,” by Amy Tan, is a collection of short stories about the relationships between Chinese born mothers and their American born daughters. The story called “Four Directions” is about a woman named Waverly Jong. The story is about Waverly trying to tell her mother that she is getting married to a American man named Richard. Waverly was a chess champion as while she was a young girl and she remembers the strategy that she used in her matches, and in her life, as she tries to tell her mother about a marriage to an American man. Waverly’s mother was raised in China under Chinese traditions. Waverly’s mother wants Waverly to marry a Chinese man and dos not want Waverly to marry an American man. As Waverly brings us through her decision making process, she questions the Chinese traditions that her mother strictly follows. Since Waverly grew up in an American society, she has lost the Chinese traditions that her mother has tried to teach her and therefore has weakened the bond between Waverly and her mother.
As Waverly brings her mother through her house, Waverly lets her mom
see the male items that are around to hint to her mother that she is living with a man, like his clothes around the bedroom and his barbells on the floor. Waverly goes to her closet and shows her mother the fur coat that Richard had given to her. After seeing the coat, Waverly’s mom says:
“This is not so good,’ she said at last. ‘It is just leftover...
She doesn't face her problems or try to fix them. Waverly and her mother are constantly fighting and disagreeing with each other because of her mother's boastful pride. This conflict continues to build up until Waverly is no longer able to take it and runs away. When Waverly's mother boasts to others about Waverly's success in chess, Waverly "raced down the street, dashing between people, not looking back as [her] mother screamed shrilly" (Tan 23). This shows that Waverly runs away from her conflicts. Because her mother is so proud, she boasts to everyone about Waverly. This annoys Waverly because she feels embarrassed about her mother always showing her pride
In the novel, The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, it tells of four Chinese women drawn together in San Francisco to play mah jong, and tell stories of the past. These four women and their families all lived in Chinatown and belong to the First Chinese Baptist Church. They were not necessarily religious, but found They could improve their home China. This is how the woo's, the Hsu's, the Jong's and the St Clair's met in 1949.
Waverly walked into Lindo's house to see her lying on the couch looking weak, almost deathlike. Waverly yells to get up to find out that her mother was just napping. The venerable look her mother had made her look nothing like the devil, like she had imagined. Not was the right time for Waverly to tell Lindo she was going to get married with rich, Lindo explains that she already knew this was coming. Waverly also confessed about how she thought her mother, Lindo, hater rich and Lindo replies with it isn't true. Lindo tells her she has good potential and that she isn't against her marriage with Rich. Their one on one conversation made Waverly finally understand her mother and how she lover an cares for
“Two Kinds” by Amy Tan is about an immigrant family from China. The two main characters consist of a chinese mother named, Suyuan, and her American-born daughter, Jing Mei. For Suyuan, moving to America meant opportunities. She pushes her daughter, Jing Mei, into trying new activities in hopes of turning her into a child prodigy. Jing Mei becomes stubborn and resentful. Her attitude towards her mother becomes a protective wall against her struggle to change her. Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds”, depicts the cultural conflict that can arise between first-generation American children and their Chinese immigrant parents today.
"Two Kinds" is truly an amazing work; it captivates readers with by telling a story of a young girl trying to find herself. Amy Tan does a phenomenal job, not only by portraying a very real mother-daughter relationship, but at showing how much a young girl can change. Jing-Mei evolves throughout the story in a way that many people can relate to; crushed hopes, obeying your parents even if it means doing something you don't want to do, and finally standing up for what you believe in.
In The Joy Luck Club, the novel traces the fate of the four mothers-Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair-and their four daughters-June Woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, Waverly Jong, and Lena St. Clair. Through the experiences that these characters go through, they become women. The mothers all fled China in the 1940's and they all retain much of their heritage. Their heritage focuses on what is means to be a female, but more importantly what it means to be an Asian female.
In the novel, The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, Ann-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying Ying St. Clair are all women who grow up in a traditional China, where there is sexism. They deal with serious problems that corrupt their lives. Through perseverance and the passing of time their lives return to normal.
The movie, The Joy Luck Club, focuses around the lives of four Chinese mothers and their Chinese-American daughters. The story takes place a few months after Junes mother, Suyuan has died. The mothers and daughters hold very different principles, where the mothers are still very traditional to their Chinese upbringings the daughters are much more “American.” The movie can be viewed from the Feminist Literary Theory, since the 8 main characters are female. The women’s life stories are told through a series of flashback scenes that deal heavily with female gender roles and the expectations of women. While the mothers and their daughter grew up in vastly different worlds, some of their experiences and circumstances correlate solely due to that fact that they experienced them because they are females.
Traditions, heritage and culture are three of the most important aspects of Chinese culture. Passed down from mother to daughter, these traditions are expected to carry on for years to come. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, daughters Waverly, Lena, Rose and June thoughts about their culture are congested by Americanization while on their quests towards self-actualization. Each daughter struggles to find balance between Chinese heritage and American values through marriage and professional careers.
America was not everything the mothers had expected for their daughters. The mothers always wanted to give their daughters the feather to tell of their hardships, but they never could. They wanted to wait until the day that they could speak perfect American English. However, they never learned to speak their language, which prevented them from communicating with their daughters. All the mothers in The Joy Luck Club had so much hope for their daughters in America, but instead their lives ended up mirroring their mother’s life in China. All the relationships had many hardships because of miscommunication from their different cultures. As they grew older the children realized that their ...
From the beginning of time, mothers and daughters have had their conflicts, tested each other’s patience, and eventually resolved their conflicts. In the story “Two Kinds,” written by Amy Tan, Jing-Mei and her mother are the typical mother-daughter duo that have their fair share of trials. Jing-Mei is an American Chinese Girl who struggles to please her mother by trying to be the “Prodigy” that her mother wishes for. Her mother has great ideas to make her daughter famous with hopes that she would become the best at everything she did. Throughout the story, the mother and daughter display distinct characteristics giving the reader insight of who they are, how they each handle conflict, and helps define how their relationship changes over time.
Oftentimes the children of immigrants to the United States lose the sense of cultural background in which their parents had tried so desperately to instill within them. According to Walter Shear, “It is an unseen terror that runs through both the distinct social spectrum experienced by the mothers in China and the lack of such social definition in the daughters’ lives.” This “unseen terror” is portrayed in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club as four Chinese women and their American-born daughters struggle to understand one another’s culture and values. The second-generation women in The Joy Luck Club prove to lose their sense of Chinese values, becoming Americanized.
In the short story, "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, a Chinese mother and daughter are at odds with each other. The mother pushes her daughter to become a prodigy, while the daughter (like most children with immigrant parents) seeks to find herself in a world that demands her Americanization. This is the theme of the story, conflicting values. In a society that values individuality, the daughter sought to be an individual, while her mother demanded she do what was suggested. This is a conflict within itself. The daughter must deal with an internal and external conflict. Internally, she struggles to find herself. Externally, she struggles with the burden of failing to meet her mother’s expectations. Being a first-generation Asian American, I have faced the same issues that the daughter has been through in the story.
For many of us growing up, our mothers have been a part of who we are. They have been there when our world was falling apart, when we fell ill to the flu, and most importantly, the one to love us when we needed it the most. In “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, it begins with a brief introduction to one mother’s interpretation of the American Dream. Losing her family in China, she now hopes to recapture part of her loss through her daughter. However, the young girl, Ni Kan, mimics her mother’s dreams and ultimately rebels against them.
Some people say that the love between a mother and her daughter is forever; but what about the understanding? In the case of Waverly Jong and her mother in the story “Rules of the Game,” by Amy Tan, there is much miscommunication and misunderstanding. The story is set in mid-1950’s Chinatown and as the story opens, it is Christmas time. “Rules of the Game” is the telling of how a little girl learns to be more independent but falls into conflict with her mother along the way and becomes a type of trophy. Amy Tan uses elements such as character, symbolism, and setting to portray the themes of struggle between two cultures and independence perfectly in “Rules of the Game.”