The Mother-Daughter Relationship In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

The mother-daughter relationship is often complex and confusing. Amy Tan explores this relationship with novel The Joy Luck Club narrated by four daughters and three mothers: Jing-mei Woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, Lena St. Clair, Waverly Jong, An-mei Jordan, Ying-Ying St. Clair, and Lindo Jong. June narrates in her late mother's place. The mothers talk about their difficult pasts in China and how they have been changed. The trauma from their past causes their daughters not to be able to connect to . The women are finally able to connect to each other. The women are forced to learn from the past, overcome adversity, and learn to understand one another.
Suyuan Woo has always told her daughter, Jing-mei, the story of the Joy Luck Club, but Jing-mei

does not take her seriously, she believes it is just a “Chinese fairy tale” (25). Then one day Suyuan tells the whole story, the true ending. Suyan first husband was in the Chinese military and with the impressing threat of Japanese forces moved to Kewelin with many other refugees. In Kewelin everyone was equal “[they] all had the same stink” (22). This humbled Suyuan, every person, even the beggars, that she thought she was better than in Kewelin they were all the same. To escape the horrors of war time Suyuan to get together with three other women. Suyuan justifies, "each week, we could hope to be lucky. That hope was our only joy" (25). "It's not that we had no heart or eyes for pain. We were all afraid. We all had our miseries. But to despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable" (24). The women … the Joy Luck parties to take their mind off of all the pain and suffering happening all around them. When Suyuan is forced to flee Kewelin she takes her twin daughters and a few belongings. When she arrives in Chungking, all she has left is the three silk dresses she is wearing.
An-mei Hsu learns how to use the world to her own advantage from her mother. When Popo, An-mei’s grandmother, falls ill her mother who has left their house in shame after becoming a third concubine to a wealthy man, Wu Tsing. After the death of Popo, An-mei decides to leave her family and go live with her mother. While living at Wu Tsing’s house An-mei learns that her mother did not willingly become a concubine. Three days before the lunar new year, An-mei’s mother decided that she did not want to pretend she was happy anymore and she committed suicide. An-mei sees her mother suicide as a way to use the world for her own advantages. She traces how her other makes the Chinese cultural belief work to her own advantage “suicide is the only way a woman can escape marriage and gain revenge, to come back as a ghost and now scatter tea leaves of good fortune” (234) (Shear). An-mei realizes that her mother dies to give her a better life and a stronger spirit. Her mother commits suicide on three days before the lunar new year because “on the third day after someone dies,the soul comes back to settle the scores, and in [An-mei’s] mother’s case, this would be the first day of the lunar year. And because it is the new year, all debts must be paid, or disaster and misfortune will follow” (240). Since An-mei was the daughter of his third concubine and Wu Tsing was afraid of ghosts, he promised to treat An-mei as if she was his “honored [child]” (240). This is an important lesson that An-mei learns, that her mother would do anything for her and there is always a way to use the world to her advantage.
Ying-Ying continues to lose herself throughout her life. On the day of the Moon Festival, when Ying-Ying St. St. Clair is four years old, her family goes to the lake to celebrate the Moon Festival. Ying-Ying wanders off towards the back of the boat and soils her clothes. Ying-Ying has to stay the rest of the trip on the back of the boat. When she falls off her family’s boat into the lake, Ying-Ying is caught in a fisherman’s net.After, being returned to shore Ying-Ying asks the Moon Lady to grant her secret wish- “to be found” (83). This trip leaves a lasting impression on Ying-Ying. Even though the story ends on a happy note, Ying-Ying feels that she can never escape “innocence, trust, and restlessness, the wonder, fear, and loneliness,” Ying-Ying continues lose herself and needs to be found (83). This act of losing herself continues into adulthood when she marries. Ying-Ying is swept up in her husband. Every decision she makes is with him in mind. This is an example of her losing herself. When Ying-Ying finds out that her husband has left her for another woman while she is pregnant, she decides to kill the baby. She says that killing an unborn baby was not a bad thing in China, but it made her feel bad.
Lindo Wong was promised to be married to a chinese boy in her village when she was only two years old. After that her life changed. Her family treated her as if she already belonged to her betrothed, Tyan-yu. After complications arise she is sent to live with his family until they are old enough to marry at the age of. His mother, Taitai, treats Lindo as if she is a servant. Once Lindo and Tyan-yu marry he refuses to be intimate to her relief. Lindo has been kept emotionally distant from everyone in her life and becoming close to Tyan-yu scares her. Eventually, Taitai becomes suspicious blaming Lindo for refusing her son. Lindo is smart though, she comes up with a plan to deceive her mother-in-law so that Lindo will be able to gracefully leave her marriage. Before Lindo was not balanced and could not wear metals now she can wear 24 carat gold. She is strong.
All four mothers of the San Francisco Joy Luck Club struggle to connect with their daughters because of the many choices the daughters had in America. In China, the mothers had very few choices that were not made for them. However, the daughters have so many choices, they cannot make decisions and this confuses their mothers. Rose Hsu Jordan describes the situation for all of the daughters saying, "so much to think about, so much to decide. Each decision meant a turn in another direction" (191). Many of the daughters are having to make major life changes “like their mothers, [the daughters are] moving out or thinking of moving out, of family relationships,” but these decisions include divorce or thoughts about divorce, and whether or not they should remarry (Shear).
The mother’s philosophy is simple: their daughters can be anything or do anything they put their mind to in America.

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

Waverly let her anger build until she makes a public outburst telling her mother that she is embarrassing her.
An-mei, Lindo, and Ying-Ying realize that the only way to help their daughters is to share their experiences. Since Suyuan has already passed the Joy Luck Aunties and her husband share her stories with Jing-mei. In the novel Suyuan's story is the only story that is told is to the daughters. An-mei, Ying-Ying, and Lindo all vow to themselves to share their story with their daughters before it is too late. In the final section of the book, the mothers connect their past to their daughter’s lives and encourage them to be strong (McCarthy). Jing-mei learns that Suyuan had no choice but to leave behind her twin daughters in China because she had fallen ill and thought that she was dying. Suyuan left pictures, jewelry, and a note with them. After her mother’s death Jing-mei travels to China to meet her half sisters. Jing-mei has never felt truly Chinese but after traveling to China and meeting her sisters she can finally feel the Chinese inside of her “it is [Jing-mei’s] family” that is the Chinese part of her (288). Traveling to China Jing-mei has a renewed sense of her mother (Shear). She is able to understand and experience her mother in a way that she has gotten to before.
Throughout the novel, The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan’s characters are forced to learn from the past, overcome adversities, and learn to understand one another. Jing-mei, Waverly, Rose, and Lena learn that they need their mothers. An-mei, Ying-Ying, and Lindo learn that have to share their upsetting past with their daughters.