Who Is The Antagonist In The Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan consists of characters who encounter antagonistic forces in the story. For instance, Lena St. Clair, the daughter of a Chinese mother, and an American father, experiences issues regarding racial discrimination, danger in new environment, and family issues throughout her story. Firstly, Lena comes to face with racial discrimination. During her story, “The Voice from the Wall,” she mentions a drunk Chinese man who runs into her and her mother, Ying-Ying St. Clair, on the street. She remembers this moment: “His runny eyes saw us and he quickly stood up straight and threw out his arms, shouting, “I found you! Suzie Wong, girl of my dreams!” Hah!” And with his arms and mouth wide open, he started rushing towards us. My mother dropped my hand and covered her body with her arms as if she were naked, unable to do anything else.” In this particular moment, Ying-Ying and Lena find a sense of fear, unable to protect themselves. The drunk man finally releases her mother

Lena notices how dangerous the streets of their new place is, due to the “narrow glass panes opened into a musty lobby that smelled of everybody’s lives mixed together.” The setting that is described in the story indicates that the building lacks secureness. The streets outside of the apartment is also risky, and Ying-Ying protects her daughter from unknown dangers by providing her with every dangerous scenario. Furthermore, she twists the backstory of a homeless woman on the street: “And her feet and her hands-the tips were as black as if she had dipped them in India ink. But I knew they were rotted. “What did she do to herself?” I whispered to my mother. “She met a bad man,” said my mother. “She had a baby she didn’t want.” Her mother mother distinguishes people on the street as a hazard, in order to warn Lena and help her avoid danger, since they lived in a risky