Analysis: The Joy Luck Club

I was in high school the first time I had to write a narrative. I was a freshman. This was Ms. Bradley’s first time teaching at Union Christian Academy. On her first day, she gave us our syllabus and said, “I do not accept late work, especially on writing assignments.” We, literally, sat there stunned. My freshman class had it very easy during eighth grade year. We were not expecting this. As I looked through the syllabus, I saw that our first assignment was due in a week and it was a narrative. At this time, I did not even know what a narrative was. Ms. Bradley explained that a narrative was an account or story of events. It could be either true or false. Our narrative had to be true. It had to be a true account of something that happened to us over the summer. She wanted to gauge how are writing skills were. Our narrative had to be at least two to two and a half pages long. I chose to write my first ever narrative on my trip to Fort Worth, Texas. Once again, I was plagued with writer’s block. I had the story in my head, but everything I

My first attempt at telling this story wasn’t the best. Aside from grammatical errors I lacked that passion that I needed to invoke in order for the story to come to life and I also left out details. As far as changes go, I changed about seventy-five percent of the entire story, which includes me just rewording certain parts of the story I also added more to it as well. Compared to my first draft I left out certain details in my final piece such as the protagonist having a sister, due to the fact that she really didn’t play a hug role in the story since she was so young, also because it was a recommendation from some of my peers.

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

In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, there are multitudes of social occasions on which a character can be changed as a result. One of these social occasions is when An-Mei’s mother commits suicide and dies in front of the household. As a result of her mother’s death, An-Mei realizes that she needs not suppress her sorrows and remain reticent as her culture defines it, but should develop and assert her own convictions. This event reinforces the message that tradition is vital for people to connect with each other, it is just as necessary for individuals to develop free thought. Tradition is vital for the initial growth of objectives and beliefs, but having tradition as a sole perspective will only come to eliminate autonomy and limit the maturity of ideas.

Whether it is wholesome or tough love, the bond of a mother and daughter can never be broken. “The Joy Luck Club” is the epitome of this notion. The anthology contains a series of sixteen vignettes, four of which belonging to one of each of the four members of The Joy Luck Club. These vignettes cover the perspectives of mothers who immigrated to America from China, along with the flip side point of view, taken over by each of their daughters. In the anthology, Tan reflects on her past life and incorporates it into the book, exploring cultural, relationship, and internal conflicts.

In writing this paper, I revised my narrative essay by adding foreshadowing, changing some tense, and deleting unnecessary sentences. I found that these changes made my paper a higher college read.

You story flowed nicely from the beginning to the end. Your story had little or no grammatical or sentence fluency errors. I could tell you took a lot of time to perfect your story.

“A relationship without trust is like a cellphone with no service, you just play games” (Quotesvalley). This quote shows that trust is important in a relationship, and it shows how without trust the people involved in the relationship will just be playing games, manipulating each other. The Joy Luck Club is about four Chinese mothers and their relationships with their daughters. The major influences that complicate these mother daughter relationships are differing opinions on cultural beliefs and a lack a trust between the mothers and daughters. Amy Tan shows the idea about trust's importance through the relationships in the Joy Luck Club through Waverly and Lindo Jong’s relationship, by showing that all relationships without trust will ultimately fail because this leads people to consistently think that others are trying to manipulate them.

Equally important, a writing assignment that I am most proud of would arguably be my 9th grade English research paper. I put numerous hours of unrelenting effort into creating a masterpiece that would clearly and concisely explore the theme of desperation and how it has seeped into our modern day world as we know it. I am a diehard

For my last and final paper for this semester I wanted it to be good. I wanted it to be better than all my papers I have done this whole semester. So for that to happen, I have to start writing my rough draft. When I had gotten my rough draft done, I went to Kresge to have Sarah read my paper; to help me look for mistakes I mad. After we fixed the ones we saw I thought it sounded pretty good. I’m not going to lie, but I was excited to turn it in the next day.

Paragraph 2 of page 9 fits well into The Joy Luck Club. During this passage, Jing-Mei Woo tells the story about why her mother, who passed away, moved to America. “So you can see how quickly Kweilin lost its beauty for me. I no longer climbed the peaks to say, How lovely are these hills! I only wondered which hills the Japanese had reached. I sat in the dark corners of my house with a baby under each arm, waiting with nervous feet and scurried to the deep caves to hide like wild animals. But you can’t stay in the dark for so long. Something inside of you starts to fade and you become like a starving person, crazy-hungry for light. Outside I could hear the bombing. Boom! Boom! And then the sound of raining rocks. And inside I was no longer hungry for the cabbage or the turnips of the hanging rock garden. I could only see the dripping bowels of an ancient hill that might collapse on top of me. Can you imagine how it is, to want to be neither inside nor outside, to want to be nowhere and disappear?”(9) The paragraph talks about the place where her mom, Suyuan Woo, hid from the Japanese. She talked about how the place was once beautiful and gave her hope, but after the place was attacked the beauty of it was strained away. In the beginning of the paragraph it says, “How lovely are these hills!” but at the end it she states, “I could only see the dripping bowels of an ancient hill that might collapse on top of me. Can you imagine how it is, to want to be neither inside or

In the book ¨The Joy luck Club” by Amy tan writes about her past and about her mother's past and how her mother wanted her to be better than the other girls. But that's how all parents were back then and would make their daughters compete with each other. The Joy Luck Club contains numerous lessons, lessons that mothers convey to their daughters, and lessons that daughters teach their mothers through the crucible of their vastly different life experiences. But what the american daughters do not know is why they would make all the girls compete with each other with their talents.

In the book The Joy Luck Club, there are two themes that I thought stood out to me. One of those two themes were Immigration. In Part 2, Chapter 2. Ying-ying, was born in China where she also met Clifford now known as her husband. She relocated to America from China to be with her husband. In an Article that I thought fit in with the story of Ying-ying, it’s about a girl named Lilliana lived in Peru, but later moved to the United States to be with her husband and have a better life. Ying-ying was later on released from Angel Immigration Station, Clifford did Ying-ying’s immigration papers. Ying-ying lost her name and her birthyear because of her husband. “She stayed there for three weeks, until they could process the papers and determine whether she was a war bride, displaced person, a student, or the wife of a Chinese American citizen. My father said they didn’t have rules for dealing with the Chinese wife of a Caucasian citizen. Somehow, in the end, they declared her a Displaced person, lost in a sea of immigration categories. My father proudly named her in her immigration papers: Betty St. Clair, crossing out her given name Gu Ying-ying. And then he put down the wrong birthyear, 1916 instead of 1914. So, with the sweep of a pen, my mom lost her name and became a Dragon instead of a Tiger.” Ying-ying is never fully heard or appreciated for her thoughts because of the language, and her husband takes on the socially-accepted role of a man speaking for his wife. “I was very

Content: Off the bat your story is incredibly fast paced and at times confusing. You're constantly changing the tense of the story and your grammar is by far the worst issue. I understand that this is your first time trying to write but somethings could easily be avoided if you proof read your work before publishing.

Does true love always end in happily ever after or does the flame eventually burn out? In Oliver Twist, Joy Luck Club, and the Awakening there are relationships that are unhealthy although to the characters they started out perfect. In each of the books the characters are not in love with the person rather the idea of them, they all see warning signs of an unhealthy relationship but simply ignore them, that is until one of them decides to take a stand and leave the relationship.