Jessica Chen
Ms. Churchill
English 2 Honors, Period 0
6 September 2015
Reconciliation
Swan feathers. Hopes and dreams. Broken relationships and healing. Though these concepts might initially appear incongruous, they are all depicted in the book The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan and The Joy Luck Club film directed by Wayne Wang. Both modes of interpretation show how the mothers help their daughters solve their problems by explaining the formers’ pasts. However, while the book leaves each of the daughters’ stories open ended, the film boldly creates a ‘happy ever after’ ending for the daughters. In both the movie and book, there are powerful bonds between the mothers and daughters. As shown by these examples, there are many similarities as well as differences between the movie and the book The Joy Luck Club, but both mediums ultimately seek to portray the same themes.
To begin with, many events in the film are similar to those in the book. For example, toward the beginning of both the book and the film, the mothers are astonished when June reveals to them that she does not know what to say to her sisters about her deceased mother, Suyuan Woo. In the book, the mothers frantically list out what qualities of her mother June should tell her sisters, such as her mother’s “kindness… smartness… dutiful nature to family… hopes, things that matter to her… the excellent dishes she cooked…” (Tan 31). Just so in the movie, during the same scene, the mothers appear
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.
The Breakfast Club is a movie about five students from Shermer High School who gather on a Saturday to sit through eight hours of detention. These five students; Andrew Clark, Claire Standish, John Bender, Allison Reynolds and Brian Johnson, have nothing in common. The Breakfast Club zooms in on the high school social groups and cliques that are often seen in the development of peer groups during adolescents. The peer groups that are portrayed in The Breakfast Club include, John “the criminal”, Claire “the Princess”, Allison “the Basket case”, Brian “the Brain”, and Andrew “the athlete”. The movie centers around an essay that Principle Vernon wants each student to write regarding who they think they are. In the beginning of the film, the
There is a common theme of hope throughout the stories of The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. Even in the face of immeasurable danger and strife, the mothers and daughters in the book find themselves faithful in the future by looking to the past, which is only helped by the format of Tan’s writing. This is shown specifically in the stories of Suyuan and Jing-Mei Woo, Lena and Ying-Ying St. Clair, and Lindo and Waverly Jong. The vignette structure of The Joy Luck Club allows the stories to build on one another in a way that effortlessly displays both the happy and dark times in each mother’s life, which lets their experiences act as sources of background and guidance to their daughters in times when they need it most.
From June’s, or Jing-Mei’s, perspective is an assumed unspoken communication that may never have existed. "I had always assumed we had an unspoken understanding about these things; she really didn't mean I was a failure, and I really meant I would try to respect her opinions more" (27). June felt that her mother saw her as a failure, "and after seeing my mother's disappointed face once again, something inside of me began to die" (144). "I hated the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations" (144). June began to resent her mother for pushing her so hard in everything she did. She wanted to give up being a child prodigy. She wanted Suyuan to love her for who she was not what she had the potential to become. June never had the chance to heal that rift between her mother and herself for her mother died abruptly before they could ever make peace.
The complexitities of any mother-daughter relationship go much deeper then just their physical features that resemble one another. In Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club, the stories of eight Chinese women are told. Together this group of women forms four sets of mother and daughter pairs. The trials and triumphs, similarities and differences, of each relationship with their daughter are described, exposing the inner makings of four perfectly matched pairs. Three generations of the Hsu family illustrate how both characteristics and
In “The Luck of Roaring Camp” by Bret Harte, nature is seemingly created into its own character. Nature has the haunting role of being the giver and taker of life in this story. The forces of nature bring the men of the camp the blessing of a small child. Through this child the men are given life and see the beauty of nature around them. However, nature will ultimately strip the men of both of these things. Harte shows us that nature is the culprit that brings both beauty and pain.
Have you ever played a game of mahjong? Mahjong is a solitaire matching game which used mahjong tiles. This game brings people together to create and reminisce memories while feasting on Chinese delicacies. In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan reinforces the mothers’ bonds through meeting up to play mahjong in their club. They try to influence their daughters to take part in this Chinese tradition, but the girls have different views. They try to become part of an American society, and look back at their Chinese descent with distaste. While the mothers of The Joy Luck Club are determined to keep their Chinese heritage, their daughters are open and willing to experience a new American lifestyle, which causes conflicts between the mothers and daughters.
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.
June wants to learn more about her mother and her culture with the added pressure of meeting Suyuan’s lost daughters in China. She starts to embrace the Chinese culture and is excited to eat a traditional Chinese meal, even though she does not get the chance (page 278). She also asks her father more about Suyuan’s time in China and the meaning of her name (page 280). When June finally meets her sisters, they murmur, “‘Mama, Mama’” (page 287). June finally feels a connection with her mother and with her Chinese background. Therefore, June’s character developed because of her mother’s passing.
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.
Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club is a novel that deals with many controversial issues. These issues unfold in her stories about four Chinese mothers and their American raised daughters. The novel begins with the mothers talking about their own childhood’s and the relationship that they had with their mothers. Then it focuses on the daughters and how they were raised, then to the daughters current lives, and finally back to the mothers who finish their stories. Tan uses these mother-daughter relationships to describe conflicts of history, culture, and identity and how each of these themes are intertwined with one another through the mothers and
The Breakfast Club was a movie delineating the interactions of five high school students from differing backgrounds encountering the obstacle of a Saturday detention. These five students were composed of a princess, a brain, an outcast, a jock, and most pertinent to this paper, the rebel, John Bender. John Bender is depicted within this movie as a careless and hostile character with some authority issues. An impulsive and uncooperative individual, Bender, in the detention for pulling the fire alarm, serves as a sharp juxtaposition to the other characters, often challenging the others on their perspectives. This contrast could perhaps be attributed to his home life, which is different from his four detention counterparts.
The author Amy Tan decided to characterize the mothers through their particular stories because it helps the reader really figure out how they are instead of just flat out saying it. By telling the story, it gives the reader a deeper meaning and deeper thoughts about how women in China during the 1930s were really treated. It helps the reader understand now how they felt and it puts the reader in their shoes. The portrayal of it being historically accurate enhances the power of the novel.
The 27 club. An infamous club that has taken away artists in the preimage of 27, whose members include: Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison. But this club is known for its musicians and not its poets. One of these poets is James Douglas “Jim” Morrison, lead singer and songwriter for the rock band, The Doors. Morrison’s poet life was hidden behind the facade of being the king of an explosive form of rock. For fans who looked hard enough, Morrison truly was only the poet who he strived to be, when writing his music. In between the arrests, women and substance abuse, Morrison’s poetry expressed his true feelings of loneliness and isolation. Morrison’s life experiences and poetry impacted his music greatly in the fact
During the 1850’s, mining camps were commonly located throughout the state of California due to its vast deposits of gold along the American River (Stevens).”The Luck of Roaring Camp” is an accurate description of the Gold Rush. The camp is an assembly of man about one hundred strong, and with every man comes a different ethnic background. Bret Hatre says,” One or two of these men were actual fugitives from justice, some were criminals and all were reckless”(6). Even though these men of “The Luck of Roaring Camp” were considered “dangerous,” the birth of a baby boy alters the description of these men from fugitives to gentlemen in a matter of seconds. In this paper the sexuality of these men will be questioned along with their masculine attributes. The under lying question is what makes a man a man? Is it this physical appearance, the depth of tone to his voice, or by what is stated on his criminal record? Whatever it may be, the transformation that these men experience due to the birth of “Luck” and the death of the mother far out ways the acts that labeled them as dangerous men. Not only is the transformation physical, it is also mental and emotional. Also, the hardships the men suffer from while searching for gold.