Mother-Daughter Communication in Amy Tan's 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.

   In Amy Tan's novel, Joy Luck Club, the mother of Jing-mei recognizes only two kinds of daughters: those that are obedient and those that follow their own mind. Perhaps the reader of this novel may recognize only two types of mothers: pushy mothers and patient mothers.  The two songs, "Pleading Child" and "Perfectly Contented," which the daughter plays, reinforce the underlying tension in the novel. These songs represent the feelings that the daughter, Jing-mei, has had throughout her life.

As the mothers immigrated to the United States, they had undergone identity changes that would separate themselves from their Chinese cultures. Some identity changes are miniscule, yet left an impact on the mother's. Adjusting to the expectations set upon them during immigration made them present their westernized side. Many were reduced to being just students, displaced immigrants, or war brides. Immigrating women were not viewed as being there

There is a linguistic gap between the mothers, who are the first generation of Chinese immigrants, and their American-born daughters. The mothers speak only fragments of English and their daughters speak little or no Chinese at all. So the communication often becomes a matter of translations and leads to misunderstandings. The first misunderstanding with translation is shown when Jing-mei tries to explain the significance of the club’s name,

   One of the common themes in both The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God's Wife is strong women. All the women in both generations in each book gain strength through different experiences. These experiences range from a war-ravaged China to the modern day stresses of womanhood. Though different experiences have shaped each woman, they are all tied together by the common thread of strength.

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

 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

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

   "I have already experienced the worst. After this, there is no worst possible thing" (Amy Tan 121). Throughout The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan tells stories of how mothers use the misfortunes in their lives, to try to teach their daughters about life. Many of the mothers had bad experiences in their pasts and do not want to see their daughters live through the same types of problems. They try to make their daughters' lives as easy and problem free as possible. However, the daughters do not see this as an act of love, but rather as an act of control. In the end, the daughters realize that their mothers tried to use their experiences to teach them not to give up hope, and to look at

Over there nobody will look down on her, because I will make her speak only perfect American English.  And over there she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow!  She will know my meaning because I will give her this swan- a creature that became more than what was hoped for.”  (Tan 1)  The culture in China the mothers of Joy Luck dealt with was unlike anything their daughters could ever imagine or appreciate. Between the mothers Lindo, Suyuan, An-mei and Ying-ying, the Chinese culture forced them into being married by a matchmaker, giving up babies, witness desperate attempts to save loved ones, and having an abortion.  In many ways the Chinese culture scared each woman, although they were proud of their heritage, their daughters deserved better.  These four mothers had very high hopes for the better lives that they wanted to give their daughters by raising them in America.  They didn’t like or want to have their daughters looked down upon, just because they were Chinese women.  From each of their own experiences, they learned that they wanted to improve the lives of their following generation.

All of the woman who migrated from China all have a curtain pride for their own mothers and cultures cultures respectively. Major acts of pride go into what these woman do while raising their daughters, as they want to push their daughters for success. “What will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything. . . .” The aunties are looking at me as if I had become crazy right before their eyes. . . . And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant. . . . They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese . . . who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation.” The other mothers are flabbergasted that June does not know that much about her mother. The mothers also have their own pride in their daughters, and all the daughters have been together, so this phrase from June scares the other mothers of what their own daughters might think about them. In Chinese tradition, respecting your mother is very important, due to June being raised in America, she does not realise what she has just proclaimed as bad until the other mothers react to it.

To begin with, The Joy Luck Club centers its content around the lives of eight women of Chinese heritage each with their own stories to tell; yet, all striving to satisfy their aspirations in America. A concisive cross is common between the mothers’ hopes compared to those of the American born daughters. Immigrating to America for various reasons, the four mothers all had one goal in mind, to not only construct themselves a better life, but also ensure the finest future for their daughters. For the mothers in the Joy Luck Club, the American dream was to instill Chinese history, heritage, and habit in their daughters while providing American opportunities of growth, gratification, and gallantry. Carrying heavy pasts, the four original American Joy Luck Club members arrived in The United States to start anew, “America was where

Originally living in China, she came to “visit her relatives, better job opportunities, better education, overall better life.” She envisioned America to be similar to what they show on televisions, “a beautiful place and wonderful environment.” However, reality was different. She quickly learned this was different than reality, as streets were dirty and not all buildings were as glamorous as shown on TV. The primarily challenges she faced in America was, “the language and diverse culture.” I believe this is a hurdle more immigrants have to face while striving for the American Dream, as they are thrown into a country with interracial cultures and languages. Overall, these expectations and challenges to be the norm, as many immigrants come to America believing they will be prosperous as long as they put in the effort, only to be disappointed in their accomplishments or be

American society is considered to be very loose and unformal in values. Americans tend to seek out individuality while the Chinese view themselves as an extension of their generations. In The Joy Luck Club, the mothers attempt to speak to their daughters in the same manner that their own mothers spoke to them, but since the mothers and daughters do not share the same cultural contexts it only leads to misunderstanding. The mothers attempt to adapt to American cultures but never manage to do so, whereas the daughters who tried so hard to not be like their mothers all seem to end up grasping the difference in the two cultures and respecting the traditional Chinese values. Even though the daughters could have had better relationships if they had listened and valued their mother’s stories in the first place. The movie does not only highlight the cultural clash that happens when generations are raised in separate societies but also it shows that despite all of the miscommunication that occurs, these women are really the same at the core and experience the same issues in terms of their relationships. They are just unable to express themselves to the other generation in a way in which they both

Conflicts play a crucial role in novels. Without conflict, novels would be uninteresting and very dull. Conflicts are seen in many different forms, as internal conflicts, when a character must deal with private problems, and external conflicts, when a character must deal with problems originating from an external source, like another person or society in general. Some common conflicts seen in other novels are person versus society, as in The Scarlet Letter when Hester is forced to face her mistake of adultery due to the obsession of the unforgiving town. An example of an internal conflict is present within Animal Dreams, when Cody must decide where she belongs and