The Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club is the first novel by Amy Tan, published in 1989. The Joy Luck Club is about a group of Chinese women that share family stories while they play Mahjong. When the founder of the club, Suyuan Woo, died, her daughter June replaced her place in the meetings. In her first meeting, she finds out that her lost twin sisters were alive in China. Before the death of Suyuan, the other members of the club located the address of June’s half-sisters. After that, they send June to tell her half-sisters about her mother’s life. In our lives there are events, and situations that mark our existence and somehow determine our life. In this novel, it shows how four mothers and their daughters were impacted by their tradition and beliefs. In the traditional Asian family, parents define the law and the children are expected to follow their requests and demands; respect for one’s parents and elders is critically important. Traditions are very important because they allow us to remember the beliefs that marked a whole culture.

    Of the many stories involving the many characters of "The Joy Luck Club", I believe the central theme connecting them all is the inability of the mothers and their daughters to communicate effectively.

Throughout Jing-mei’s life, though she does not realize it, the people she interacts with and the trials she goes through all help her discover who she is, and help her find her own path in life. Not only does she learn who she is, but she also learns more about her mother; which helps her understand why her mother says and acts the way that she does. This knowledge of her mother helps Jing-mei realize that she needs to compromise with her mother sometimes, and she becomes more willing to embrace her

 The culture clash can best be examined by taking a look at Ying-Ying's and Lena's relationship.  Ying-Ying grew up rich in China, followed tradition and married the man her father chose for her.  He left her, and she aborted their child.  This caused her so much damage she became a recluse for a while.  "I stayed in this country home for ten years.  If

The Joy Luck Club continues with Lindo and Waverly Jong. As a child, Lindo had a pre-arranged marriage, which turned out poorly. She wants her daughter to be able to have a happy marriage with a husband she chooses herself. Throughout Lindo's unhappy marriage, she often wondered why she should have "an unhappy life so someone else could have a happy one"(53). Lindo's thoughts reveal that she wished to live her own life and have the ability to make her own decisions. This desire gave Lindo the extra confidence to figure out a way to escape the marriage, in which she did successfully. When Waverly shows her mother the sweater that Rich bought her, she tells her mother that it was from his heart which is "why [Lindo] worries" (186). Lindo's uncertainties reveal that she only wants the best for her daughter, but Waverly thinks that her mother only has something against Rich. Once Waverly talks to her mother, she realizes that her mother does not have any "secret meaning," but does not want her

Waverly was going to tell Lindo of her and Rich’s engagement, but whenever she mentioned him, Lindo cut her off and began to talk about something else. Waverly was convinced that her mother did not have any good intentions, and that she never saw good in people. Due to this, she was afraid of what her mother will say when she would meet Rich. According to Waverly, she and Rich shared a “pure love”, which she was afraid her mother would poison. Waverly planned to go to Auntie Suyuan’s house with Rich for dinner, knowing that her mother would then invite the two over for dinner to her house, and this would give her mother a chance to get to know and warm up to Rich. However, when they went for dinner, Rich did everything incorrectly- he didn’t understand Chinese customs and made several mistakes that were seen as

In the novel The Joy Luck Club written by Amy Tan, there are several stories that intertwine into one novel. Each of the stories takes place China where the roles and the actions of woman are vastly different compared to American tradition. In the different stories, they all are about different mothers and daughters. Throughout the book, the reader can see the development in each relationship between mother and daughter with their conflicting backgrounds from China to America.

Culture defines humanity. Culture makes humans different than any other living organism ever known. Culture is what makes humans unique, and yet culture is easily the most misunderstood characteristic of individuals. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan develops the theme of incomplete cultural understanding leads to an inability to communicate one’s true intentions through juxtaposition and conflict between mothers and daughters and their cultures.

Characterization is a widely-used literary tool in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. Specifically, each mother and daughter is a round character that undergoes change throughout the novel. Characterization is important in the novel because it directly supports the central theme of the mother-daughter relationship, which was relevant in Tan’s life. Tan grew up with an immigrant mother, and Tan expresses the difficulties in communication and culture in the stories in her book. All mothers in the book are immigrants to America, and all daughters grew up living the American lifestyle, creating conflict between the mothers and daughters due to miscommunication. Characterization of the mothers and daughters in Amy Tan’s The Joy Club creates and

All of the daughters do still have problems, relationship problems that is. Waverly Jong divorces her first husband. Lena St. Clair and Rose Hsu Jordan are in the process of getting a divorce from their husbands. Lena is very unhappy and is considering divorcing her husband. Rose's husband on the other hand was the one to give her the divorce papers. Jing-mei has never married and infact never even had any kind of relationship. All of the daughters have something in common, they do not know how to face their own problems or how to even solve them. Waverly has a good job going for her, but she is scared to let her mother know she is thinking about getting re-married. Lena has a serious eating disorder, lacks self esteem and is very upset with how her husband left her. Her mother does not think it is okay that she goes to a psychiatrist and tells him all her problems instead of going to her own mother for advice. Jing-mei and rose both lack self esteem and seem to be scared of Waverly because Waverley as seen as the daughter who can do everything perfectly.

All literature is created by themes, without themes, they would simply be stories, and within those themes are patterns; constantly repeating throughout the work. Throughout the novel, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, the use of themes and repeating patterns are seen through four different families. Some of the most prominent themes or patterns are family, specifically mother-daughter relationships, women and femininity, and growth in characters.

At 1946, Yingying hears about about her first husband’s death, she feels a slight feeling of emptiness and lets Clifford, an American man that she doesn’t love at all to marry her. “I spoke in a trembly voice. I became pale, ill , and more thin. I let myself become a wounded animal. I let the hunter come to me and turn me into a tiger ghost. I willingly gave up my chi, the spirit that caused me so much pain.” (P.251) Ying-ying chooses not to face her past and lets her spirit fly away with her sadness. Before her first husband dies, she was “A still-married woman with no husband.”(P.249) But now that he’s dead, she can not regain the strength that she can change her future, which she had lost when her first husband left her. This makes Ying-ying loss trust in her spirit, letting her fate control to her life and forgets about her own feelings. She believes marrying

The relationship a mother has with her daughter is one of the most significant relationships either person will possess. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, the stories of four mothers and their respective daughters are established through vignettes, which reveal the relationships between them. Throughout the novel, the mothers and daughters are revealed to be similar, yet different. Lindo and Waverly Jong can be compared and contrasted through their upbringings, marriages, and personalities.

    With all the cultural clashes that the mothers and daughters are facing in The Joy Luck Club, it is hard for the characters to have a sense of identity. The daughters are torn between Chinese and American culture and are trying to figure out who they are. The daughters are also trying to figure out who their mothers are and how that affects them. The mothers have two lives, the ones they live in America and the ones that they left behind in

From the film The Joy Luck Club, Chinese girls were supposed to act obedient and respectful to their parents and elders. This included the girls having to abide by each and every Chinese tradition that their parents instilled in them. Girls were also expected to be quiet and considerate to their parents and elders. They were only supposed to speak when spoken to at all times. Acting out against anything their parents enforced upon them was completely unacceptable.