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Thesis settings, symbolism in the short story the joy luck club by amy tan
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Parental Control vs. Guidance in Joy Luck Club
The novel, "Joy Luck Club," by Amy Tan describes the struggle between a dominate mother who tries to protect her daughter, Ni kan, from the devastating losses that she suffered by convincing her that she might become anyone she wants to be. Ni kan resents her mother's control and wishes only to be herself. The author clearly illustrates in this novel that parents cannot control their children's lives; they can only guide them in the right direction and let them make their own decisions.
First of all, Amy Tan shows that Ni kan's mother attempted to dominate and control her daughter's life. The mother does this by telling Ni kan that "'. . . you can be prodigy, too'" (Tan 491) and insisting that she work toward this goal. Ni kan is then sent down a path of endless tests and lessons. These include tests on capitals of the states; multiplying numbers in her head; finding the queen of hearts in a deck of cards; trying to stand on her head without using her hands; predicting the daily temperatures in Los Angeles, New York, and London; and looking at a page from the Bible for three minutes and reporting everything that she remembers (Tan 492).
Although Ni kan quickly loses interest of her mother's dream of being a prodigy, her mother persists. She arranges for Ni kan to take piano lessons. Her mother does not ask her if she wants to play the piano or to explore another art form. She arranges a complete schedule of lessons and practices that take over not only her daughter's physical existence but also dominate Ni kan's thoughts for most of her free time. Her mother wants to control not only her actions but also her dreams and aspirations, and she will not tolerate disobedience. She clearly says that "Only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter" (Tan 497).
Amy Tan shows that Ni kan resents her mother's decisions and resists her control. After many failed tests in knowledge and skills, Ni kan asserts to herself, "I won't let her change me. . ." (Tan 492). This clearly shows a child resisting parental domination and control. The piano lessons evokes a response of "...I felt like I was being sent to hell" (Tan 493).
No relationship is ever perfect no matter how great it seems. In the novel The Joy Luck Club, written by Amy Tan, she tells the story of a few mother daughter pairs that are in a group named the Joy Luck Club. The Joy Luck Club is a group of women who come together once a week to play mahjong. The founder of the Joy Luck Club, Suyuan Woo, dies, leaving her daughter Jing-mei to take her place in the club. Her daughter, Jing-mei, receives money from the other members of the club to travel to China in order to find her mother's twin daughters who were left many years ago. In this book you get more of the details of this family and a few more. Amy Tan uses the stories of Jing-mei and Suyuan, Waverly and Jindo, and An-mei and Rose to portray her theme of, mother daughter relationships can be hard at times but they are always worth it in the end.
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
Amy Tan, in ?Mother Tongue,? Does an excellent job at fully explaining her self through many different ways. It?s not hard to see the compassion and love she has for her mother and for her work. I do feel that her mother could have improved the situation of parents and children switching rolls, but she did the best she could, especially given the circumstances she was under. All in all, Amy just really wanted to be respected by her critics and given the chance to prove who she is. Her time came, and she successfully accomplished her goals. The only person who really means something to her is her mother, and her mother?s reaction to her first finished work will always stay with her, ?so easy to read? (39).
One could argue that the mothers’ trials don’t equate to modern times and the Western world. However, making that assumption would discredit the connection that is evident between the generations. Rather, the mothers’ experiences translate quite well, lending them greater insight into their daughters than their daughters could hope to know. At its core, The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, shows that shared pieces of culture and experiences transcend not just borders, but generations.
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.
Jing-mei realizes her mother was trying to help her out, but since their personalities clash, Jing-mei first believed her mother was forcing her to play piano. She thought her mother was setting up unrealistic expectations for her, when only she just wanted to see her daughter live the American Dream. She didn’t understand the Chinese way of thinking so she thought her mother was just being strict. Her mother wants her to be a strong, independent American woman. She just wanted her daughter to have all the opportunities she wasn’t able to have in China.
“Here is how I came to love my mother. How I saw her my own true nature. What was beneath my skin. Inside my bones.” (Tan 40)
In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan explores mother-daughter relationships, and at a lower level, relationships between friends, lovers, and even enemies. The mother-daughter relationships are most likely different aspects of Tan's relationship with her mother, and perhaps some parts are entirely figments of her imagination. In this book, she presents the conflicting views and the stories of both sides, providing the reader--and ultimately, the characters--with an understanding of the mentalities of both mother and daughter, and why each one is the way she is.
The difficult struggle of finding true identities ate the energy of these young women. “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan is about a group of young mothers and their daughters having issues with their identities as Chinese women in an American world. The establishment the women created became The Joy Luck Club. Throughout everyone’s stories, many lessons were learned. The Chinese women often faced the issue of not being able to accept their identities. As well as not being able to find their identities: it became lost in the hype of all the judgment of others. As the women dealt with these problems, they also bonded as a group.
...ch ease, and now is a successful businesswoman in her own right. Just as Tan’s mother did, “my mother has long realized the limitations of her English” (Tan 130). Somehow these limitations did not hinder her. She recognized who she is and that is the way that she was made to be and there was going to be no one or no thing that could change that.
Tan was born to a pair of Chinese immigrants. Her mother understood English extremely well, but the English she spoke was “broken.”(36) Many people not familiar with her way of speaking found it very difficult to understand her. As a result of this, Tan would have to pretend to be her mother, and she called people up to yell at them while her mother stood behind her and prompted her. This caused Tan to be ashamed of her mother throughout her youth, but as she grew, she realized that the language she shares with her mother is a “language of intimacy” (36) that she even uses when speaking with her husband.
In the novel The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan portrays the effects of childhood events on the roles and attitudes of the present lives each character must face. Particularly, Lena St. Clair felt restricted by her mother as she shields her from the dangers of the outside world. Consequently, when Lena did face trouble, she was unable to fight back and saw evil in everything she saw. Furthermore, the constant conflict that arose from the male superiority in Ying-Ying’s marriage and her miscommunications with her husband influenced Lena’s present behavior. Instead of expressing her own concerns, Lena allows her husband to make major decisions. Influenced by her childhood experiences and the troubles of the marriage between her parents, Lena inherits a passive role in her relationship to Harold.
... the midway through the nineteenth century, most Germans thought that Jews had to be removed from Germany for it to be prosperous and successful (Levy 12). Jews are slowly beginning to be blamed and feared as an economic danger, like as they were before (Levy 10). Many Europeans thought that Jewish people could never be a “true” and loyal citizen to Europe or wherever they are happening to be live (Levy 10). Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Jews had be chased and massacred throughout Europe by the thousands, restricted on some things, still responsible for the death of Jesus Christ, and conspiring against Christians and Europe in general (Levy 13). Some countries were even trying to get a political movement trying to create a new Jewish homeland for the Jews, preferably in Palestine. This act is called Zionism, but sadly it did not end up working out.
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.
The Joy Luck Club, written by second-generation Amy Tan, is a collection of stories written in the perspectives of four mothers and four daughters. Although there are various short stories in one novel, it relates to one theme of the conflict between the first and second generation. The second generation argues “That parents shouldn’t criticize children. They should encourage instead.---And when you criticize, it just means you’re expecting failure” (Tan 31), as the first generation answers, “You never rise. Lazy to get up. Lazy to rise to expectations”(Tan 31). As a second generation Asian American, the thought process of June Woo is incredibly similar to how I feel, yet placed in a mature manner. As a teenager, it is hard to process one’s feelings because of puberty, hormones and scientific phenomena that I can not explain. However, it could also be the lack of conservation and communication between young adults and adults themselves. My parents have the highest expectations: getting straight A’s, having my back straight, being the top of my class and many more I do not want to list. As previously stated before, most of my childhood I lived in Anaheim which was not the most academically challenging district; being top of my class was a piece of cake. Unfortunately moving to Irvine, that was not necessarily the case. Irvine was showered with