Joy Luck Club Character Analysis

In the final chapter of “The Joy Luck Club”, Jing-Mei is able to finally fulfil her mom´s wishes after her death. By flying to China with her father Jing-Mei is able to meet her twin sisters. During the trip Jing-Mai learns more about her mother and the way she loses the twins. Suyuan, Jing-Mei´s mom always hope about finding her missing daughters. When Jing-Mei is able to see her sisters for the first time, she sees how similar they look to Suyuan. Jing-Mai accepts herself the way she is. At the end Jing-Mai makes peace with her mom´s death.

The Joy Luck Club revolves around the idea of family; specifically focusing on mother-daughter relationships. Each mother-daughter pair faces their own struggles such as overly high expectations, miscommunication, and the passing on of undesirable traits. In the first story of this novel Suyuan Woo, the mother of Jing-mei Woo, wants her daughter to become a piano prodigy. She ends up putting such high expectations on Jing-mei that she refuses to practice correctly and become good. Since her mother set such high expectations for her daughter, her daughter begins to resent her. These expectations caused Jing-mei to feel as if she was never good enough for her mother and as a result, their relationship is weakened. Different from Suyuan and Jing-mei are Lindo and Waverly. All of Waverly’s life she feels as if her mother is always against her and is constantly pointing out the negatives in everything. She blames her mother for the failure of her first marriage because she pointed out everything wrong with her husband. Waverly says,

The result of this education was a disaster due to the differences in values between the two cultures. Ying-Ying realized that her marriage was a mistake when her husband left her for another woman. Her love for him turned to hate and she killed her unborn baby. She felt great remorse for this and considered herself a murderer. She later remarried a gentleman by the name of St. Clair. With St. Clair she had a daughter. After her second son, which was her third child, died at birth, Ying-Ying had a mental breakdown. She saw his death as a punishment for the murdering her first son.

The book The Joy Luck Club is a novel written by Amy Tan, who is very famous in writing about mother-daughter relationships. There are four pairs of mothers and daughters whose stories are told in The Joy Luck Club. All of the mothers were born in China and came to America because of some kind of problem, but their daughters were born in the United States. Due to the fact that the daughters were born in the United States, they are extremely Americanized. Consequently, they do not value the Chinese heritage which their mothers valued dearly. As the daughters are growing up, this conflict between them increases. Suyuan Woo and her daughter, June or Jing-mei, two characters from the book, had major conflicts over the Chinese belief system of

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

She was my mother,” (31).  Jing-Mei says this to her aunts after her mother had died, and she had to take your position in joy luck.  She felt like she never really knew her mother because of their miscommunication.  Suyuan Woo, Jing-Mei’s mother, had many hopes and good intentions for her daughter. While Jing-Mei wanted to be herself and still please her mother, Suyuan wanted her daughter to be a child prodigy. Always wanting the best for her daughter, Suyuan hoped Jing-Mei would one day become an extraordinary pianist.  Although Jing-Mei played the piano, she never put forth much effort into the music because her best was not good enough for her mother.  Nonetheless, she stopped playing the piano.  “I could only be me,” (154).  She could not be something that she was not; she could not live up to her mother’s expectations.  This symbolized one of Jing-Mei’s songs, “Pleading Child.”  Suyuan continues to put all the pressure on Jing-Mei so that she will not become like her mother for all the reasons she had come to America; hopes for a better life.

Mostly, Jing-mei 's fears echo those of her peers, the other daughters of the Joy Luck Club members. They have always identified with Americans (Jing-mei also goes by the English name"June") but are beginning to regret having not paid attention to their Chinese history. Her fears also speak to a two-way fear shared by the mothers, who wonder whether, by giving their daughters American opportunities and (the ability to survive with no outside help), they have abandoned them from their Chinese history.

Even the hotel she stays in looks like "a grander version of the Hyatt Regency" and the Chinese feast she had envisioned was replaced by "hamburgers, french fries, and apple a la mode." It is not until she finally meets her twin sisters, in modern Shanghai, that she realizes that she is Chinese because of "blood" and not face or place. Within this story, however, is her mother's story, set in another time and place. Fleeing from the Japanese invasion, during World War Two in 1944, Jing-Mei's mother is forced to abandon her twin daughters on the road between Kweilin and Chungking. Upon hearing her mother's story Jing-Mei Woo is able to understand a great deal more about her mother and their relationship, as well as her own past.

Early in childhood Jing Mei dreamed of finding her prodigy and being a famous Chinese American, mostly because of the views and actions her mother placed on her. Her mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. (pg 405) Her mother was always pushing new tests and talents on Jing Mei. She even went as far as having her daughter Jing Mei models her physical appearance and actions after a child-star Shirley Temple. Her other was always testing her with many different things trying to discover Jing Mei’s talent. Later Jing Mei started to feel like her mother was just trying to make her into someone she was not and started to just fail and not try to do anything right hoping her mother would give up. When her mother died she had realized what her mother had been trying to do. Her mother had only wanted her to do her best. She had then to realize what her mother had

The Joy Luck Club contain stories about conflicts between Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters. The book mainly talked About Jing-mei's trip to China to meet her half-sisters, Chwun Yu and Chwun Hwa. Jing-mei's mother, Suyuan, was forced to leave her twin babies on the roadside during her flee from the Japanese invasion of Kweilin. Suyuan intended to recover her children, but she failed to find them before her death. Finally, a after her mother's life long search her mother received a letter from the two "lost" daughters. After Suyuan's death, her mothers' three friends in the Joy Luck Club, a weekly mahjong party that Suyuan started in China and later revived in San Francisco, urge Jing-mei to travel to China and tell her sisters about their mother's life. But Jing-mei wonders whether she is capable of telling her mother's story. Lindo, Ying-ying, and

The Joy Luck Club is Amy Tan's first novel. It consists of four sections with sixteen short stories. One of the main issues of the novel is the relationship between Chinese mothers and their Chinese – American daughters. ‘‘Your mother is in your bones.’’ (Tan 1998, 30) There is a cultural chasm between them because of the difference in the way they were brought up and different influences of the environment.

In The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Jing-Mei and her mother have a very rocky relationship. Tan develops a relationship between Suyuan and Jing-Mei that is distant in the beginning due to culture differences and miscommunication, but gradually strengthens with time and understanding. Both of them have different backgrounds and have been influenced by two different cultures. Suyuan grew up in China and behaves according to the Chinese culture and her American-born daughter Jing-Mei is influenced by the American culture that surrounds her and wants to become part of it.  Their relationship is also shaped by the pressure Suyuan puts on Jing-Mei. She wants her to be a perfect

Some may see the mother trying to live her life through her daughter. She invests time trying to make her daughter a prodigy because she was her last hope. The mother lost two children in China and moves to a new country. Coming to America, she felt that immigrants have to prove that they are as talented as or more talented than Americans. This belief is supposed to be the basis for the determination, that the mother has, for Jing-mei to become a prodigy.

Jing-Mei finds a new person that was determined to fight against her mother. Moreover, Jing Mei

The story is around an American-conceived Chinese lady, Jing-mei, who goes to China to meet her twin stepsisters that her mom was compelled to relinquish numerous prior years. Since her mom had passed away just a couple of months prior, the meeting is full of vulnerability and bitterness. Jing-mei battles with self-character issues and what it truly intends to be Chinese. En route, she takes in reality about the reasons her mom deserted her sisters and the significance behind their names. At last, she at last associates with her sisters and makes the passionate association with her Chinese legacy.