Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mom Poem Analysis

All mother- daughters relationships go through a series of hardships and obstacles. Relationships between mothers and daughters can be seen through care and compassion or anger and frustration depending on how they are viewed. The memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom by Amy Chua and the novel, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan both set examples of different mother-daughter relationships during music lessons. Amy Chua’s excerpt portrays a tense tone, while Amy Tan’s excerpt depicts a hostile and belligerent tone. In the excerpt, “The Violin”, there is a point of irony when Chua tries to reinforce Mr. Shugart’s point about relaxation to her daughter when she is practicing her violin at home. Because she is stressed out, Amy Chua screams, “RELAX” to Lulu (Chua 47-48). She also yells, “Mr Shugart said RAG DOLL!”(Chua 47-48). Chua is trying to get her daughter to be calm but by yelling relax, she is contradicting herself. This goes to show how tense and stressed out Amy Chua becomes while Lulu learns to play the violin. The tone between Amy Chua and Lulu is tense which is the opposite of the type of relationship that they really have. Although Amy Chua gets stressed and anxious while her daughter learns to

Amy Tan argues with her mother by screaming and shouting. As Tan bawls bitterly to see what kind of reaction she can get out of her mother, she has a sense of fear in the back of her mind. Amy Tan claims, “As I said these things I got scared”(Tan 141-142). Along with fear, Amy Tan shows harshness through her diction. She shouts, “I wish I were dead! Like them”(Tan 141-142). This particular phrase expresses a rigid mother-daughter relationship. The word choice from Amy Tan and the tone that is shown across the excerpt illustrates that Amy Tan and her mother’s relationship is full of resentment and