When children grow up, parents have expectations on how they act and so does the child as they grow, trying to meet the expectations as a means to please them. With failure to do so, a feeling of guilt and defeat arises from it. Amy Tan’s book The Joy Luck Club tells a story about how children are with expectations. Mothers Suyuan and Lindo went to America with the belief that anything was possible with enough dedication. So with their daughters Jing-mei and Waverly, there was an expectation that they could be exceptional at anything with hard work. Jing-mei and Waverly's failure to meet expectations that their mothers and they themselves set caused them to become demoralized while resenting their mothers. Failure can only happen when something …show more content…
Taking piano lessons, she signed up for a talent show where she played poorly and “...[she] heard a little boy whisper loudly to his mother, ‘that was awful,’...”(151). She was built on the belief that she would become a prodigy similar to Shirley Temple, but when she performed, she realized that she wasn’t. So letting her parents down that she wasn’t good at the piano and the audience recognition of it has brought her great embarrassment. Waverly, an excellent chess player raised by Lindo, won many tournaments being covered in magazines as a natural prodigy. She quits chess for a short time and comes back but “When [she] lost twice to the boy whom [she] had defeated so easily a few years before, [she] stopped playing chess altogether.”(pg.190). She saw herself as a genius at chess, so with the loss to someone she beat before, it led her to quit. Driven away by the shame of losing, she quits as she believes that her talents have diminished. Shame and guilt follow with the failure to meet expectations set by one’s …show more content…
Jing-mei after the piano performance doesn’t want to go to piano lessons anymore because of the shame of the performance. An argument occurs when Suyuan attempts to get Jing-mei to piano practice believing that Suyuan is forcing her to be something she can’t be saying to Suyuan that “... [she] wish [she] wasn’t [Suyuan’s] daughter...”(pg.153). She wants to get away from it since it has brought her so much disappointment and sorrow, blaming her mother for being the source of it. The piano is seen as forced upon her and despises her mother for doing so, as she is forcing her to be unhappy. Waverly has already started to form a rift between her and her mom for boasting about her. With her loss she saw it as her mother’s plan to get back at her since “She seemed to walk around with this satisfied look,...”(pg.190). Pinning her loss to her mother instead of accepting that she lost has made her widen the rift between the two of them. It forced her to isolate herself from her mother, believing her mother will bring more failure in the future. Mothers are seen as the root of their failure since they felt like they were pushed by their mothers. Expectations set by the mothers and daughters that didn’t get reached caused the daughters to isolate themselves from their mothers. As they continue to learn, they are propped up by their parents to believe they are exceptional at
These children do not have to go through everything they parents went through to be successful. They do not know the meaning of working hard, setting goals and achieve those goals. So these kids end up losing their goals and sense of self-worth, Gladwell says.
To guide the reader into following the storyline of The Joy Luck Club, Tan utilizes literary techniques in order to emphasize events and ideas in the novel. One of the various techniques used in the novel is foreshadowing. Lena and her mother, Ying-ying, is one of the four mother-daughter relationships which exemplifies foreshadowing. Lena describes her mother to have the ability to foretell unfortunate events which she views as a pessimistic viewpoint. For example, when Lena was eight years old, Ying-ying warned if Lena did not eat every piece of rice in her bowl that she would end up marrying a bad man. Although concerned with her mother’s pessimistic views, Lena comes to understand Ying-ying when she realizes everything she projected
When her mother dies, Jing-Mei really shows how much of a dynamic character she is. She realizes that, just like the songs in the piano book, her mother and she "were they were two halves of the same song" (Tan 357).
Jing-mei 's mother wants Jing-mei to be a prodigy and get popular. Thus, the mother rents a piano for Jing-mei to help her achieve this. Many years later, Jing-mei finds the piano in a broken state, so she decides to have it repaired. She starts playing the song she used to play, “Pleading Child.” But to the right of “Pleading Child,” she finds a second song named “Perfectly Contented.” She starts to play both songs, “And after I [Jing-mei] had played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.” (6) Jing-mei’s mother tells Jing-mei that there are two kinds of people: the respectful kind and the disrespectful kind. At that time, Jing-mei also finds out that there are two kinds of people inside her. She could choose to be the kind where the person is a prodigy and respectful, or be the kind that is ugly in the eyes of people. When she plays “Pleading Child” and “Perfectly Contented,” Jing-mei realizes that her identity had changed completely because of her laziness and beliefs. Jing-mei learns that there are two kinds of people in the world, and she should choose the right
Jing-Mei brought much hope to her mother. Suyuan was very critical of the people around her, so she was especially critical of her daughter. Once, Jing-Mei confronted her about being so critical, saying "people rise to other people’s expectations" (31). Suyuan replayed to her daughter, "That’s the trouble, you never rise. Lazy to get up. Lazy to rise to expectations" (31). And that was the basis of the mother-daughter relationship between Suyuan and Jing-Mei. Suyuan always had very high expectations for her daughter – wanting her to be a child prodigy. She would give Jing-Mei tests on things she would read in magazines, like knowing the capitals of the states or multiplying numbers. Jing-Mei ev...
Woo cleans the house herself and no longer has a housekeeper. With the money she saved, she hired Mr. Chong, an ancient piano teacher, who can barely hear and whose eyes are too dulled to tell when Jing-mei messes up. He is so genuine that Jing-mei feels guilty and picks up the basic skills, but she is so bent on not pleasing her mother that she continues to purposefully lack in her efforts. She hates the piano. She hates the fact that her mother is shaping her identity. She hates that her mother forces it upon her. She hates that it's everything she isn’t: disciplined, elegant, and most of all controlled. Jing-mei wants to be who she wants to be, and with the piano around, she only continues to be who her mother wants her to be, but she can not tell her mother this. She is supposed to play a piece called “Pleading Child” which is a “simple, moody piece that sounded more difficult than it was”. Even though she had not practiced and didn't know the piece, she played anyway. Halfway through, she began to realize how awful she was. The silence that followed her performance and her parent’s disappointed looks unfolded the undeniable truth, Jing-mei was not a piano
Jing-mei wants to be able to choose who she wants to be as she gets older. However, her mother is pushing her to be the best she can be. Her mother is from China, so being in America makes her believe you can be anything you want to be, basically living the American Dream. Therefore, she wants her daughter to be talented. Her mother wants her to become a prodigy at piano and even made her take lessons. In the beginning, Jing-mei believed she could be a prodigy like her mother said. She realizes it’s rather difficult which leads her to stress out and get frustrated. Jing-mei She thinks she’s not capable of playing anymore. Jing-mei gets into an argument with her mother, since their
Jing-Mei was forced to take piano lessons; this only further upset her as she felt that she was a constant disappointment. Her mother was mad at her on a regular basis because Jing-Mei stood up for herself and explained to her that she didn’t want to be a child prodigy.
... her own person and wanting only to be accepted for who she is and not who she could be. Even though the argument was never discussed it still haunted Jing-mei. That is why Jing-mei was surprised when her mother offered her the piano for her thirtieth birthday, she took it as a sign of forgiveness.
In the beginning, Jing-mei, is “just as excited as my mother,”(469). Jing-mei was eagerly hoping to make her mother proud. However, her mother’s obsession with becoming a prodigy discouraged Jing-mei. The daily test began to aggravated Jing-mei because they made her feel less sma...
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
...ies, she goes back to the piano and finds two songs. She begins to play “Pleading Child,” the song that caused the breaking point of her relationship with her mother. This song, with its fast and aggressive melody, best represents the mother’s aggressive attitude towards her daughter. Then Jing-mei plays the song next to “Pleading Child,” called “Perfectly Contented.” It turned out to be lighter and slower. It is a much happier song. Jing-mei’s determination to be herself, “Perfectly Contented,” corresponds with this song. “And after I played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.” (499). Like the ying-yang and the songs, Jing-mei’s relationship with her mother may seem disastrous and apart, but together they share a strong bond that makes them whole. Even though the two disagree, like the songs, they form one beautiful song.
The next significant event in Jing-Mei ’s life was when she started to play the piano. Mr. Chong, her piano teacher, was deaf and somewhat blind, so Jing-Mei used this to her advantage by not playing the right note when she knew it was wrong. Jing-Mei never would correct herself because she knew that the teacher was not able to hear the
...ith Jing Mei and her mother, it is compounded by the fact that there are dual nationalities involved as well. Not only did the mother’s good intentions bring about failure and disappointment from Jing Mei, but rooted in her mother’s culture was the belief that children are to be obedient and give respect to their elders. "Only two kinds of daughters.....those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!" (Tan1) is the comment made by her mother when Jing Mei refuses to continue with piano lessons. In the end, this story shows that not only is the mother-daughter relationship intricately complex but is made even more so with cultural and generational differences added to the mix.