1st Section Preface: “Feathers From A Thousand Li Away”
The old woman remembers a swan she purchased a long time ago for a really low price, and she decides that the bird is much too elegant to eat (17). While sailing to America the old woman expresses to the swan the new opportunities, and that she will have a daughter that will be just like herself (17). The old woman said that her daughter is not going to be judged by her husband’s worth but she will be judged by her own worth, and she will teach her daughter to only speak perfect English (17). While going to America, she was stripped of her swan from immigration officials and was only left with one feather for recollection (17). The old woman now has a daughter and has been waiting for the perfect opportunity to give the feather to her daughter (17). She wants to represent the feather as the how the swan was worthless, but the swan came a long way and inside it conceals great ideas (17). The old woman now waits for the day she can tell her daughter this in English (17).
1. Chapter One: “The Joy Luck Club”
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Jing-Mei recalls back to where her mom made the San Francisco version of the Joy Luck Club in 1949 and near the same time Jing-Mei was born (20). The mother talked about how she was leaving the town of Kweilin and that she left her two babies on the way to Chungking “… I had lost everything except for three fancy silk dresses…” (26). Jing-Mei arrives at the Joy Luck Club and realizes that there are a lot of changes that have occurred, things that were not traditional to the original one that her mom made (28). The aunties at the club decide to give money to Jing-Mei so that she can go visit her long lost sisters in Hong Kong, China
At the beginning of the novel, Suyuan Woo begins telling the story of The Joy Luck Club, a group started by a small family of Chinese women during World War II, where "we feasted, we laughed, we played games, lost and won, we told the best stories. And each week, we could hope to be lucky.
Here is a journey that not only started "a thousand Li away", but from generations upon generations of tradition. The Joy Luck Club travels over time and continents to present the background and turmoil of eight amazing women. All of these women have had to deal with the issues of culture, gender, and family, each in their own way, yet all similarly. Amy Tan dedicates her novel to her mother with the comment "You asked me once what I would remember… This, and much more." Each of the mothers in Tan's novel wanted to teach their daughters the lessons learned in China while giving them the comforts of America. But language and culture barriers diverge the women until they were almost lost to each other. Each character had to take their own journey to finally understand what drove them apart and find their common ground.
In the beginning, the Joy Luck Club members discuss the different types of mah jong. While Jing Mei listens, she realizes how differently she and her mother live, speak and function together. While the club members are explaining the differences in Chinese and Jewish mah jong, Jing Mei thinks back to the conversations that she and her mother used to have regarding the same topic. During their talks, her mother constantly tries to keep her Chinese culture a part of her daughter's daily lifestyle. One way is how Suayan describes Jewish mah jong, which Suayan thinks is the less desirable style. She describes it using a very harsh tone. Jing Mei assumes that her mother is so mad because the game is not like the Chinese way. Despite her mother's wishes, Jing Mei plays Jewish mah jong with her friends. Another annoying trait is that Suayan constantly tries to keep the Asian tradition in her daughter's lifestyle by Suayan's refusal to speak to her daughter in English. Jing Mei rebells; however by also continuing to speak in English while her mother speaks in Chinese.
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.
The Joy Luck Club is the telling of a tale of struggle by four mothers and their four daughters trying to understand the issue of gender identity, how they each discover or lose their sense of self and what they mean to one another. Throughout the book each of the mothers works hard at teaching their daughters the virtues of Chinese wisdom while allowing the opportunities of American life. They try passing on a piece of themselves despite the great barriers that are built between the women. Each of the stories gives a wonderful glimpse into the Chinese culture and heritage that the mothers are trying to reveal to their daughters through the use of festivals, food dishes, marriage ceremonies, and the raising of children, essentially their past experiences.
Amy Tan starts The Joy Luck Club with the daughter, Jing-mei, and mother, Suyuan Woo. Suyuan lived through a hard life in Kweilin during the war and teaches her daughter to keep her head up and have faith, even though things may seem hard at the time. When Suyuan lived in Kweilin, she had many things that could depress her, "but to despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable" (11). Suyuan's wishful thinking reveals that she did not want to think of all the bad things happening around her. Rather, she wanted to focus on the fact that she "had luxuries few people could afford" (10). The ability to find the good when others see only bad helped Suyuan center her attention on the superior things that she had, such as the Joy Luck Club and her friends. Later, when Jing-mei goes to meet her sisters in China, she becomes "so nervous [she] can't even feel [her] feet"(331). The uneasy emo...
The Joy Luck Club daughters incontestably become Americanized as they continue to grow up. They lose their sense of Chinese values, or Chinese tradition in which their mothers tried to drill into their minds. The four young women adopt the American culture and way of life, and they think differently than their traditional Chinese mothers do, upsetting the mothers greatly. The daughters do not even understand the culture of their mothers, and vice versa. They find that the American way of thinking is very different from that of the Chinese.
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. The four daughters: Waverly, Lena, Rose, and Jing-Mei are all Americans. Even though they absorb some of the traditions of Chinese culture they are raised in America and American ideals and values. This inability to communicate and the clash between cultures create rifts between mothers and daughters.
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.
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.
When analyzing the Joy Luck club it is important to consider the life of the author. It is apparent after studying both The Joy Luck Club and Amy Tan that there are some incredible similarities among the two, particularly the story of mother Suyuan-Woo and her daughter Jing-Mei Woo. Suyuan is a main character and plays an extremely important role in the novel even though she passed away. She created the Joy Luck club years ago and is the main reason why this tight kit family exists today. Suyuan decided to create the Joy Luck club during a ve...
The Joy Luck Club Aunties want the best from their daughters, but “he failure of communication between the cultures and the generations is an important theme” (Paddock). Suyan pushes Jing-mei to be a piano prodigy by making her take lessons from a deaf piano teacher. Jing-mei determined to try does not practice but keeps rhythm so Mr. Chong cannot tell that she is playing poorly. When Jing-mei embarrasses her mother at the talent contest by playing terribly, her mother still encourages her to continue practicing. Jing-mei yells at her saying that she wishes that she was dead like her twin sisters. This made her mother stop trying to get to play the piano but it caused an irreparable rift between them. When Lena’s mother, Ying-Ying, visits her house, Ying-Ying supposedly accidentally knocks over a glass vase off a wobbly table in the guest room. When Lena goes upstairs to check on her mother Ying-Ying says, “Fallen down,” then Lena tells her, “it doesn’t matter, I knew it would happen” (165). Ying-Ying replies simply “then why you don’t stop it” (165). Ying-Ying is also talking about the martial problems that Lena is facing. Ying-Ying is telling her to take control and solve the problems before it is too late. Lindo Jong’s overbearing qualities provoke her daughter to quit chess. Waverly was a chess prodigy and was less than 429 points away from being grand master status. As Lindo continued to micromanage Waverly: her outfits, the tournaments she attended, and coached her even though Lindo did not know much about chess. Waverly became in the restless. One day, while Lindo was bragging about Waverly and showing her off at the market, Waverly told her mom that it was embarrassing. Lindo became confused and angry questioning Waverly, “Embarrass you be my daughter?” (99). Waverly is tired of her mother's constant control but instead of talking to her
Jing-mei and her mother have conflicting values of how Jing-mei should live her life. She tries to see what becoming a prodigy would be like from her mother's point of view and the perks that it would bring her as she states in the story "In all my imaginings, I was filled with a sense that I would soon become perfect. My mother and f...
Toni Morrison shared a story in her speech about an old, blind woman who was very wise. Two young people came to visit her and prove that the woman was not as wise as they heard she was. They pretended to hold a bird and asked her if it was dead or alive. " 'I don't know,' she says, 'I don't know whether the bird you are holding is dead or alive, but what I do know is that it is in your hands. It is in your hands.'" Life is about decisions. The young children chose to put the old woman in an uncomfortable situation. The woman's response was perfect for the children. Her language was strong enough for them to learn how to control their obnoxious behavior. Morrison connects the bird and woman together in an interesting way. She states, "So I choose to read the bird as language and the woman as a p...
Jing-Mei tries to live up to her mother’s expectations but feels that her mother expects more from her than she can deliver. She doesn’t understand why her mother is always trying to change her and won’t accept her for who she is. She feels pressure from her family when she is compared to her cousin Waverly and all her accomplishments. Soon the conflict grows to resentment as her mother tests her daily on academics, eventually causing Jing-Mei to give up while her mother struggles to get her attention and cooperation. Her mother avoids arguing with her daughter early in the story, continuing to encourage her to strive for fame. Her mother’s next assignment for her daughter is piano lessons. This goes along pretty well until her mother forces her to participate in a talent show. The daughter’s failure on her performance at the talent show causes embarrassment to her mother. Conflict is evident when two days later, after the talent show, she reminds her daughter that it’s time for piano practice and the daughter refuses to obey her mother. The conflict that the daughter feels boils over in an outburst of anger and resentment towards her mother for trying to make her something that she is not. Harsh words are spoken causing the mother to retreat and not speak of this event ever