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 …show more content…
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
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.
“Only two kinds of daughters,” “Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!”(476). When a mother pushes her daughter to hard, the daughter rebels, but realizes in the end that their mothers only wanted the best for them and had their best interest at heart. In the beginning, Jing-mei, is “just as excited as my mother,”(469). Jing-mei eagerly hoped to make her mother proud. However, her mother’s obsession with becoming a prodigy discouraged Jing-mei.
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
In Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club, the character of An-mei learns to love and respect her mother. This essay will focus on the precise moment of the transformation of An-mei to a strong, self-confident woman.
“I asked myself, What is true about a person? Would I change in the same way the river changes color but still be the same person?” (1.3.53) Theme identity plays an important role in the novel as it focuses on the lives of Chinese-American daughters and their Chinese-born mothers. The novel is broken up into certain scenes told in different perspectives, as well, it examines the ups and downs of life in both the mothers and daughters. Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club has the daughters develop their understanding of their Chinese heritage, through their mother’s love, by learning about the past, and their cultural heritage;
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 Joy Luck Club’s collection of short stories effectively communicates the different women's pasts and perspectives through different narrators, each with a different tone. Ying-Ying St. Clair’s regrets of “remaining quiet for so long [that her] daughter does not hear [her]” contribute to her bashful, yet wise tone (67). Conversely, her daughter, Lena St. Clair, was “comforted… somewhat to think that” others around her “had a more unhappy life” and held a naive and honest tone (113). Differing narrators’ juxtaposing tones create stark differences in perspectives and backgrounds, which is similar to the product of antithesis. These differences encourage the reader to fully consider the differences in background and viewpoints and adds a level of humanity to the characters. Ultimately, switching narrators switches perspectives and prose styles and encourages the reader to fully understand the characters’ reasonings for their actions. Additionally, the beautiful, flourishing imagery and figurative language transports the reader into The Joy Luck Club. An-Mei’s life felt as if she “had fallen out of the bowels of a stupid goose, two eggs that nobody wanted” (42). This metaphor provides the reader with a strong, clear image of the rejection that An-Mei faced as a child. Tan’s connotative language brings the characters’ perspectives to life and provides an emotional connection to the characters’ lives and struggles. Her fully immersive writing style encourages the reader to empathize with the characters. The reader can easily tolerate the characters’ odd behaviors when he or she can justify their actions through past experiences. Tan’s mature and unique writing style allows readers to understand empathy and coexistence through her literature and carry this through their lives to better strive to
Jing-mei Woo has to become a member of the Joy Luck Club in place of her mother, Suyuan Woo, who passed away. Before Suyuan's passing Jing-mei does not know much about her mother, as the story continues to develop Jing-mei realizes how much she did not know about her mother and learns more and more new things about her on her journey of finding her sisters. “Your father is not my first husband. You are not those babies” (26), this quote is from Suyuan Woo and shows Jing- mei that her mother has a lot of secrets that she does not know about. “Over the years, she told me the same story, except for the ending, which grew darker, casting long shadows into her life, and eventually into mine” (21). This quote shows how Jing-mei did not know much
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.
... and in her hurry to get away, she (falls) before she even reach(s) the corner,” (87). This foreshadows the relationship between the mothers and daughters in The Joy Luck Club. The daughters can not understand the reasoning behind their mothers’ decisions. However, the mothers realize their daughters are so much like them and they do not want this to happen. The daughters grow up being “Americanized,” but as they grow older they begin to want to understand their Chinese culture. All of the characters learned many valuable lessons that will be passed on to their own children.
She works against her mother on many issues, doing what she wants to do and often times disobeying her. Her disobedience is shown in the rebellion against the nightly talent tests. She states, “So now when my mother presented her tests, I performed listlessly, my head propped on one arm. I pretended to be bored” (2). The fighting between Jing- mei and her mother also shows Jing-mei to be independent. She acts differently than her mother wants her to but Jing-mei refuses to change. She follows her own thinking and subsequently disobeyes her mother, saying, “‘I'm not going to play anymore,’ I said nonchalantly. ‘Why should I? I'm not a genius.’... ‘No!’ I said, and I now felt stronger, as if my true self had finally emerged. So this was what had been inside me all along. ‘No! I won't!’ I screamed” (6). Jing-mei thinks independently and refuses to do what others ask of her. Jing-mei does not waver in her disregard for her mother’s wishes for her and does not compromise or try to work out any issues. She says things without any remorse, only caring about herself, saying she “wished she were dead! Like them [sisters]”(7) and "then I wish I weren't your daughter, I wish you weren't my
In The Joy Luck Club, Suyuan Woo is forced to abandon her twin daughters at the side of the road in a desperate act to give them a chance to live. Throughout her life she is haunted by this memory:
The movie “Joy Luck Club” is about the relationship between four Chinese mothers and their American-Chinese daughters. The four mothers are immigrants from China living in San Francisco California. They gather often to play and told stories about there lives in China. They reveal there flashbacks stories to there daughters. All of them lives are shaped by the clash of American and Chinese cultures as they endeavor to understand their family bonds. Each mother wants the best for their daughters, but they struggle through apprehension, feelings, and failures. In the film theirs conflict between mothers and daughters. The two mother-daughter pairs I will discuss are: Lindo and Waverly, and An-Mei and Rose.
The complexitities of any mother-daughter relationship go much deeper then just their physical features that resemble one another. In Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club, the stories of eight Chinese women are told. Together this group of women forms four sets of mother and daughter pairs. The trials and triumphs, similarities and differences, of each relationship with their daughter are described, exposing the inner makings of four perfectly matched pairs. Three generations of the Hsu family illustrate how both characteristics and values get passed on through generations, even with the obstacles of different cultures and language.
The story is told in the first-person narrative, or subjective point of view. This is important as it leads the reader to sympathize with the narrator as well as setting up the protagonist/antagonist relationship of daughter and mother. In this case, Jing Mei narrates as an adult but through the eyes of a child, allowing the reader to draw upon his/her ow...