Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

"But even if I had known I was getting such a bad husband, I had no choice, now or later. That was how backward families in the country were. We were always the last to give up stupid old- fashioned customs" (24). Amy Tan, the writer of The Joy Luck Club, incorporates many Chinese customs and traditions along with personal experiences into her writing. Because times change and new generations are produced and brought into the world, conflicts tend to arise between parents and their children. From issues on self-worth to having trouble embracing the Chinese culture, Tan creates a storyline incorporating three mother/daughter pairs who truly encompass these challenges. Upon analyzing

Women have been mentally abused throughout time creating a distraught conscience, which compels them to create a safer lifestyle. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan is a novel about eight women, four wives and four daughters, who moved from China to America. These four women meet in America and decide to meet once every week. The four mothers, Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair, decide to have their daughters, Jing-mei Woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, Waverly Jong, and Lena St. Clair, join them. These women dealt with oppression caused by their gender and finding a new style of living just they could be reassured of their safety. Tan argues that the societal-driven mistreatment towards women has a damaging psychological impact and forces

In its essence, The Joy Luck Club, is about mother and daughter relationships. It especially focused on the want of the mothers to be able to connect with their adult daughters who seemed to not be able to fully understand their mothers due to cultural and generational gaps. There is also an overlaying fear that their collective wisdom and hope and dreams will not be passed on to their daughters. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant…They see daughters who grow impatient

In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, Waverly Jong is a dynamic character who shows her arrogance, selfishness and insecurities as the story progresses. On the first letter of Waverly’s name, W, sits a Mink, which symbolizes her desire for her mother’s approval. Throughout the novel, Waverly avoids Lindo’s criticism and fears her mother will not agree with her choices. This is evident in “Four Directions” when Waverly shows her mother the mink coat Rich bought her and Lindo responds, “This is no good… It is just leftover strips. And the fur is too short” (Tan 186). Waverly is destroyed by her mother’s criticism. After Lindo points out the coat’s flaws, Waverly can no longer see the good in it; she only values the things her mother values. Next, the “a” is formed by a crab, symbolizing selfishness. During New Year’s dinner at the Woo house, Waverly takes the best three crabs for her family. She does not care that she is a guest or that Suyuan had not planned on Shoshana eating crabs, she takes the best for herself, showing her self-centered nature. After the “a,” the “v” is formed by two dolls, symbolizing her childhood and her love for her daughter. Contrasting her negative traits, Waverly’s unfaltering love for Shoshana shows that she is willing to sacrifice her successes for her daughter’s prosperity, demonstrating that she is not as selfish as she is portrayed. A red candle is embedded in the “e” to highlight Waverly’s ignorance. She believes she is all knowing but does not

In the novel, The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan tells the story of four Chinese mothers and their American daughters. Throughout the book, Tan talks about the mothers and the life they had in china, the relationship between their mothers, and why they moved to America. She also writes about the daughters who were born and raised in America and their relationship with their mothers. In addition, she talks about the cultural differences between the Chinese mothers and the Chinese-American daughters. Joy Luck Club is one of the best books in showing examples of the differences in Chinese and American culture. Three examples of this that are shown in the book are collectivism versus individualism, humility against self-promotion, and internalizing emotion compared to expressing emotion.

Paul Eitler, friend, said: Tyler has a leadership attitude who also knows how to communicate with others.

Communication is one of the most vital aspect of everyone’s life and that is often hinted at in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. Throughout the book, we encounter mother-daughter relationships that are ultimately impacted due to linguistic roadblocks. The mothers are more proficient in Chinese, sometimes struggling to have their daughters completely understand their dialect. This, in turn, poses as a barrier in regards to conserving a cultural connection between the mother and daughter.

Being known for your achievements can be beneficial in your life. Also, even though you have no desires of getting recognized, it's better to not make yourself act like a hermit crab. Thus, I am against those who prefer to be reclusive in this fascinating and growing world. Through literature and my own experience I can affirm my stance.

The author of The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan wrote the novel because of her mother’s death(Gray1). It also inspired her to write the story about struggles, conflicts and loss. But importantly the challenges that the characters overcame, reflected her life and achievements. In the book, it shows lots of gender roles that the women had to take. The current state of the issue in our society had changed, in that case the author would be satisfied about the issue today. In today’s modern society, the issues in the book can be viewed as unfair and unacceptable and also as time past, woman have more authority and have a voice to stand up for what is right. Additionally, women began to praise equality. They began to reform on financial, domestic rights,

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan looks into mother-daughter relationships. Four pairs of daughter-mothers relationships are considered whereby the mothers were born in China but migrated to America where they bore their daughters. The daughters are Americanized and tend to identify more with the American culture at the expense of their Chinese culture. Suyuan Woo experiences much difficulty in trying to explain to her daughter June or Jing-mei certain cultures of the Chinese such as Confucianism, death and mourning. While her mother wants Jing-mei to be a child prodigy, Jing rebels and does not work hard. The mothers constantly criticize the American ways that their daughters choose including choice of hairdos. Nonetheless, one can observe the

In the best-selling novel, The Joy Luck Club was inspired by author Amy Tan’s personal life conflicts. She presents the story in exploration as an Asian American, who has troubles accepting her Chinese heritage, and her relationship with her estranged mother. The novel explores the relationship between four traditional Chinese mothers and their four Americanized Chinese American daughters. Amy Tan shares the clash of mother and daughter relationships based on heritage and traditional, new and old. Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice have similarities in the daughter and mother relationship. The relationship between mothers and daughters are always a connection rather the relationship is good or bad. This paper will review Tolstoy, Austen, Tan’s story, as well as main arguments and evaluation of Tan’s writing technique and main focus on the relationship theme between mother and daughter. The essay will focus on the reasons of if the mother’s ways and the rebelling of the daughters.

The Joy Luck Club presents many conflicts in the mother-daughter relationship. The conflicts are embodied in 3 aspects. First, the mothers and the daughters are in different cultural backgrounds, and the daughters cannot understand their mothers. At the beginning, Jing-Mei fears that she cannot tell her mother’s story to her half-sisters, which, in fact, reflects the fear of other daughters of the Joy Luck Club members. They have identified themselves with Americans. Jing-Mei’s fear also reflects the mothers’ common feelings. They offer the chance to go to America to their daughters, and make them self-sufficient; they wonder whether they have their daughters away from tradition. So in the story “The Joy Luck Club” Jing-Mei feels puzzled, “What will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything.” The way in which the mothers express their love cannot be accepted by the daughters. Jing-Mei believes that her mother’s constant blame is the embodiment of lacking of affection. However, in fact, the mother’s severity and high expectations are expressions of love and faith in her

One of the main themes in The Joy Luck Club, is the relationship between mother and daughter, because the entire story revolves around the sacrifices made by mothers for their daughters, even going so far as to sacrificing a literal piece of them selves to give their mother a small boost of time in life. In this essay I will be conveying the theme of mother daughter relationships through real world and literature comparing.

Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club tells the story of the hopes and dreams of immigrant mothers and their first generation daughters in America. June is the daughter of Suyuan, who

In the movie, the Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, we see many examples of the challenges of intercultural translations. The movie portrays cultural conflict between Chinese culture and the American culture as portrayed by the lives of four mothers and their daughters. The mothers were born and raised in China, adopting the high-content Chinese culture, while their daughters, born and raised in America, adopted the low-context American