Comparing The Joy Luck Club And The Kitchen God's Wife

First of all, the Joy Luck Club had so many conflicts and misunderstandings between almost all of the characters. Most of the conflicts were between Waverly and her mom. Some conflicts were just differences between Waverly and her mother because of the generation gap between the two. Her mom didn’t like the things she would do and she could never see herself doing things that Waverly was doing back when she was a child. There were also cultural and martial conflicts throughout the book also.

Many women find that their mothers have the greatest influence on their lives and the way their strengths and weaknesses come together. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, the lives of four Chinese mothers and their Chinese-American daughters are followed through vignettes about their upbringings and interactions. One of the mothers, An-Mei Hsu, grows up away from her mother who has become the 4th wife of a rich man; An-Mei is forced to live with her grandmother once her mother is banned from the house, but eventually reunites and goes to live in the man’s house with her mother. Her daughter, Rose, has married an American man, Ted, but their marriage begins to end as he files for divorce; Rose becomes depressed and unsure what to do, despite

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.

   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.

Four Chinese mothers have migrated to America. Each hope for their daughter’s success and pray that they will not experience the hardships faced in China. One mother, Suyuan, imparts her knowledge on her daughter through stories. The American culture influences her daughter, Jing Mei, to such a degree that it is hard for Jing Mei to understand her mother's culture and life lessons. Yet it is not until Jing Mei realizes that the key to understanding who her

    The commonly known phrase “like mother, like daughter” holds very true with all the pairs of mothers and daughters in The Joy Luck Club.  Rose posses important characteristics that were passed on by her mother, An-mei.  Uniquely with this couple, the trait can also be traced back to An-mei’s mother.  All three of these women have difficulty

Both stories investigate the difference between American and Chinese parenting styles from two women’s point of view – Hanna Rosin and Amy Chua.

In the novel The Joy Luck Club written by Amy Tan, there are several stories that intertwine into one novel. Each of the stories takes place China where the roles and the actions of woman are vastly different compared to American tradition. In the different stories, they all are about different mothers and daughters. Throughout the book, the reader can see the development in each relationship between mother and daughter with their conflicting backgrounds from China to America.

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

The stories "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior" by Amy Chua and "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan portray how children are raised in Chinese-American culture and what beliefs predominate in Chinese-American communities. In Chinese-American culture, mothers approach raising their children differently from many other American parents. While there are many similarities among these Chinese parents, variation can still be seen in the level of persistence and determination each individual parent pours into their parenting. These differences in persistence can be what make the difference in the results.

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 immensely popular novel, The Joy Luck Club explores the issues faced by first and second generation Chinese immigrants, particularly mothers and daughters. Although Tan's book is a work of fiction, many of the struggles it describes are echoed in Maxine Hong Kingston's autobiographical work, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. The pairs of mothers and daughters in both of these books find themselves separated along both cultural and generational lines. Among the barriers that must be overcome are those of language, beliefs and customs, and geographic loyalty. The gulf between these women is sadly acknowledged by Ying-ying St. Clair when she says of

For millions of immigrants, America has been seen as the land of opportunity where anyone could become anything he or she wanted to be. A family that believes strongly in the American dream can be found in Amy Tan’s short story, “Two Kinds.” The story centers around the daughter of a Chinese immigrant who desperately wants her daughter to become successful. In the story, the author shows the difficult lives immigrants face when moving to a new culture. In this short story, the theme shows the protagonist’s conflict with her mother on the type of daughter her mother wants her to be. The author establishes the theme of how difficult mother-daughter relationships can be through characterization, setting, and symbolism.

    With all the cultural clashes that the mothers and daughters are facing in The Joy Luck Club, it is hard for the characters to have a sense of identity. The daughters are torn between Chinese and American culture and are trying to figure out who they are. The daughters are also trying to figure out who their mothers are and how that affects them. The mothers have two lives, the ones they live in America and the ones that they left behind in

Because America is such a diverse country, there are many differences between cultures of various immigrant groups. Members of each culture, have their own beliefs and values regarding what they think is right. The cultural diversity allows for each person to have a different view of things. Amy Chua’s essay “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” she describes her way of parenting her two daughters following Chinese values about education. She explains how Western parents are much more lenient than Chinese parents with their children and education. Chua gives examples of how she raised her daughter Lulu and Sophia which lead them to achieve success. She makes comparisons between Western and Chinese parenting styles throughout the essay and concludes that both types of parents want the best for their children, but just approach parenting it in different ways. In the article, “Chinese vs Western Mothers: Q&A with Amy Chua,” Amy Chua is interviewed by Belinda Luscombe where she clarifies how her Chinese method of parenting did not hurt her children the way many readers thought it did. Chua explains that her relationship with her two daughters is very strong and believes there are many effective ways of parenting in addition to the Chinese approach. Chua’s essay shows the Chinese immigrant approach to parenting and gives insight into why so many children of Chinese parents are so successful. Discussing the cultural differences shows the risk of stereotyping groups where feelings