The Joy Luck Club
In Amy Tan’s novel “The Joy Luck Club” there are many themes and imagery throughout the book, but one theme that is relevant and stands out is the issue, “Cruel men? Weak men? Fair portrayal of men?” The novel is based on women in the Chinese traditional families, but does not discuss the men. What role do they play in their lives? Were they the people that made there lives unbearable? The men that will be looked upon are associated to the Jong, The Hsu, and the St. Clair family. Although many people would believe that the men in “The Joy Luck Club” were vindictive, they have shown that they not only are they feeble but that the weak men over power the cruel, and through their actions this statement will be apparent to all.
The Jong Family have two key males that fit the description of cruel and or weak men. The first was Tyan-Yu, Linda Jong’s first husband. Lindo and Tyan-Yu’s wedding was arranged marriage. Lindo’s parents were forced to depart their home leaving Lindo behind. Even though she was only twelve years old, Lindo belonged to the
…show more content…
She was Wu-Tsing’s fourth wife. Taitai was not pleased when she was forced to become Wu-Tsing’s wife after a evil scheme was carried through by his second wife. Wu-Tsing showed his weakness by allowing the second wife to take control over him. She would use him to her advantage and would get whatever she pleased through evil ploys. She knew that he was afraid of ghosts and that “suicide is the only way a woman can escape marriage and gain revenge.” (264) The second wife would fake suicides to get what she wanted from him, and he would give in offering her more than what she had originally asked for. Wu-Tsing needed to learn how to stand up for himself and not give into others so
In her book, The House of Lim, author Margery Wolf observes the Lims, a large Chinese family living in a small village in Taiwan in the early 1960s (Wolf iv). She utilizes her book to portray the Lim family through multiple generations. She provides audiences with a firsthand account of the family life and structure within this specific region and offers information on various customs that the Lims and other families participate in. She particularly mentions and explains the marriage customs that are the norm within the society. Through Wolf’s ethnography it can be argued that parents should not dec5pide whom their children marry. This argument is obvious through the decline in marriage to simpua, or little girls taken in and raised as future daughter-in-laws, and the influence parents have over their children (Freedman xi).
Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club uses much characterization. Each character is portrayed in different yet similar ways. When she was raised, she would do whatever she could to please other people. She even “gave up her life for her parents promise” (49), I the story The Red Candle we get to see how Tan portrays Lindo Jong and how she is brought to life.
The bitter cold bit against the starved girl’s skeletal body. She was tired. Her parents discussed ways to get to good lands. They told her the only way to have a better life was to sell her into slavery. The girl, only ten years old was silent. She dreamed of fine clothing and good food. The girl went to the House of Hwang. She was too ugly to be in sight; she was kept in the scullery. All dreams of any kind were lashed out of her young mind. Mistreated, beaten, and underestimated, young O-lan learned to work hard and became resigned to her fate. One day, the Old Mistress summoned her and told her that she was to be married to a poor farmer. The other slaves scoffed, but O-lan was grateful for a chance to be free - they married. O-lan vowed to return to the great house one day in fine clothing with a son. Her resolve was strong; no one could say otherwise. Her years of abuse as a slave had made O-lan wise, stoic, and bitter; whether the events of her life strengthened or weakened her is the question.
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.
Reviewing the whole book, it is clear that The Joy Luck Club is a link to intergenerational and intercultural connections. Tan said that "To my mother and the memory of her mother you asked me once what I would remember this, and much more." The novel develops with mother and daughter and Tan understands the special bonds between women. The Joy Luck Club is set in San Francisco's Chinatown, but much of it occurs in the flashbacks to the mothers' lives in China. As a result, we become familiar with three different times and places: China, where the mothers grew up, San Francisco, where the daughters and mothers live, and America in general place.
The Joy Luck Club, is a film that shows a powerful portrayal of four Chinese women and the lives of their children in America. The film presents the conflicting cultures between the United States and China, and how men treat women throughout their lives. People living in the United States usually take for granted their roles as a male or female. The culture of each country shapes the treatment one receives based on the sex of the individual. Gender roles shape this movie and allows people, specifically the United States, to see how gender are so crutcial in othe countries.
Although she got pregnant by someone other than her husband they did not look at the good and joyful moments the child could bring. Having a baby can be stressful, especially being that the village was not doing so great. The baby could have brought guilt, anger, depression, and loneliness to the aunt, family, and village lifestyle because having a baby from someone other than your husband was a disgrace to the village, based on the orientalism of women. Society expected the women to do certain things in the village and to behave a particular way. The author suggests that if her aunt got raped and the rapist was not different from her husband by exploiting "The other man was not, after all, much different from her husband. They both gave orders; she followed. ‘If you tell your family, I 'll beat you. I 'll kill you. Be, here again, next week." In her first version of the story, she says her aunt was a rape victim because "women in the old China did not choose with who they had sex with." She vilifies not only the rapist but all the village men because, she asserts, they victimized women as a rule. The Chinese culture erred the aunt because of her keeping silent, but her fear had to constant and inescapable. This made matters worse because the village was very small and the rapist could have been someone who the aunt dealt with on a daily basis. Maxine suggests that "he may have been a vendor
Wang Lung needs a wife so saves up the little money he has and buys a woman who is a slave named O-lan. O-lan is sold to Wang Lung so she can take care of the home, cooking and bear children. Wang Lung is disappointed when he first sees O-lan because she does not have bound feet which was a desirable quality at that time but he does enjoy when O-lan has the food ready when he comes in a night from the land. Wang Lung is very proud when O-lan makes cakes that no one else in the village knows how to makes and when his family comes to feast for the new year at their house.
...hildren and leave. Don Fernando however refused and borrow Don Alonzo’s sword and with that the crowd allows them to leave. As the party is heading to the courtyard a man claims that he is Jeronimo’s Father and clubs Jeronime over the head. Donna Constanza sees this and runs to Don Alonzo but before she could get to him someone in the crowd mistook her for Josephe and was then clubbed to death. Josephe upon seeing this gives herself up to the crowd and is then clubbed by Master Pedrillo. Don Fernando stood his ground and defended the childr3en with his sword but eventually throw the fight his own son is torn from his arms and is bashed against a pillar. As the crowd disperse, Don Fernando is left with Phillpp who he and Donna Elvira adopts as their own sons. At the end of everything Don Fernando compares Juan and Philipp and thinks back on how everything started.
Is it fair to judge someone by their sex? In traditional Chinese culture, many judgments were made about a person just by observing their sex. The woman was looked upon as an inferior being. They had little or no status in society, and little was expected from them. They were discriminated against when they tried to stand up for themselves. Chinese culture was customarily male dominated. The male was expected to do most of the work, and the woman was expected to stay at home with their mouth shut. This custom leaves an unwelcome feeling in a woman's heart. They feel like no one cares, and it makes it much harder to live with an optimistic view on life. In the novel, The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, reviews the lives of three Chinese women, Ann-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying Ying St. Clair. These women grow up in traditional Chinese homes, where there is sexism. They deal with serious problems that corrupt their lives. Through perseverance and the passing of time their lives return to normal. Ann-Mei, Lindo, and Ying Ying are subjugated by males because of their sex, and Chinese tradition. Ann-Mei was oppressed in many ways. Her mother was invited to spend time at the home of a wealthy merchant named Wu Tsing. At night he would come into Ann-Mei's mother's room and rape her. Despite emotionally scaring Ann-Mei this demonstrates the lack of respect for a women in China. Ann-Mei's mother is forced into concubinage because of her lack of power as a women. She becomes the third wife. As a third wife she maintains very little status in the home of Wu Tsing. Ann-Mei's family disowns her mother because by becoming a third wife she has brought shame to her family. "When I was a young girl in China, my grandmother told me my mother was a ghost". Ann-Mei is told to forget about her mother and move on in her life. The fact that Ann-Mei is told to forget her mother because she has become something she could not control, is preposterous. She was raped and forced into concubinage. The lack of appreciation for a female causes this feeling of shame for the Mei family. Since rape and polygamy is accepted in China, it makes it appear that what Ann-Mei's mother has done is wrong, and what Wu Tsing did was right and normal.
The movie, The Joy Luck Club, focuses around the lives of four Chinese mothers and their Chinese-American daughters. The story takes place a few months after Junes mother, Suyuan has died. The mothers and daughters hold very different principles, where the mothers are still very traditional to their Chinese upbringings the daughters are much more “American.” The movie can be viewed from the Feminist Literary Theory, since the 8 main characters are female. The women’s life stories are told through a series of flashback scenes that deal heavily with female gender roles and the expectations of women. While the mothers and their daughter grew up in vastly different worlds, some of their experiences and circumstances correlate solely due to that fact that they experienced them because they are females.
Popo, and Ixtla loved each other but here father didn’t wanted her to get married. They had many enimyes. Heer father was
It is fundamental to the analysis to investigate Lindo's past in China. It is clear that she is a much loved child. "In my case, people could see my value. I looked and smelled like a precious buncake, sweet with a good clean color"(42). In my opinion, that kind of self-worth comes from unconditional love. This helps her when she is left at twelve by her family. She must stay with the Huangs, whose son she is promised to in marriage, even though it almost kills her. " I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents' promise"(41). In China, at the beginning of the 20th century, there was no escape from such a promise.
The book Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak: A Report by Jean Herzfeld presented several statements from an interviewed conducted with the nine Hutu killers who contributed to killing over 50,000 Tutsis communities with machetes. Throughout the book, these nine killers narrated their experience/opinion on several topics asked how the Rwanda genocide began to how they participated in the genocide. For those who do not have prior knowledge of the history regarding the Tutsis and Hutus, one may wonder why would Hutus participate in violent acts against the Tutsis. In addition, question how could these people continuously harm this same group of people, especially when the victims are people they know or seen before. Based on the different
The story of Princess Huo’s daughter is a story about a man by the name of Li Yi. Li Yi was from a good family and showed brilliant promise. Even senior scholars admired him. At the age of twenty-one, he hoped for a beautiful and accomplished wife. In Chang’an Li asked a matchmaker by the name of Bao to find him a wife. Li gave her expensive gifts and she was very well inclined to him. One afternoon, some months after talking to Bao Li was sitting in the south pavilion of his lodgings when he heard continuous knocking. Bao entered and Li asked her “What brings you here so unexpectedly, madam”. Boa had found Li a perfect match for a wife, and with the good news Li was ecstatic and leaped for joy. Saying “I shall be your slave as long as I live!” Bao informed him that she was the youngest daughter of prince Huo. Her name is Jade, her mother was the prince’s favorite slave. When the prince died, his sons refused to keep the child, so they gave her a piece of wealth and made her leave. She changed her name, and the people do not know the prince was her father. She is the most beautiful...