Joy Luck Club Analysis

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.

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

Traditions, heritage and culture are three of the most important aspects of Chinese culture. Passed down from mother to daughter, these traditions are expected to carry on for years to come. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, daughters Waverly, Lena, Rose and June thoughts about their culture are congested by Americanization while on their quests towards self-actualization. Each daughter struggles to find balance between Chinese heritage and American values through marriage and professional careers.

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

These different kinds of love help to make the novel more complex and offer more viewpoints to the story. Family love is a great theme in the novel, and we see it in many forms. For example, we see it in the early chapters between Cecilia and Briony- Cecilia and Briony have an extremely strong relationship that falls apart as the novel progresses. The memory of Cecilia comforting Briony in a nightmare- “It’s only a dream. Come back” in Chapter 3, Page 44 helps tell us about the relationship they have with eachother, and also helps to show how Briony has unconditional support and loyalty to her family. Briony’s fault is that she cannot comprehend the idea that her siblings can be in any way sexual- she fails to see that Cecilia could be in a consenting relationship with Robbie in the library, and she tries to get her brother Leon to “provoke his admiration, and guide him away from a careless succession of girlfriends, and towards the right form of wife”. This strong family love is shown through Briony being undeniably loyal to Cecilia as she calls herself “Cecilia’s protector” and thinks a tragedy will bring them closer together. Everything she does is a step towards protecting her family. Family love is explored through all the characters, and the different relationships offer different viewpoints to the story- Lola and Briony, Robbie and Grace, Emily and Briony...these relationships show pure and strong family love.

I think to myself what if I had a fight with my mother? What if, the fight, I was in trouble? What would I do? After the chapter “ Rules of the Game ”, I think that I have a good idea on what Waverly will do next.

All literature is created by themes, without themes, they would simply be stories, and within those themes are patterns; constantly repeating throughout the work. Throughout the novel, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, the use of themes and repeating patterns are seen through four different families. Some of the most prominent themes or patterns are family, specifically mother-daughter relationships, women and femininity, and growth in characters.

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.

The novel The Joy Luck Club(1989) which written by Amy Tan has got a big success at that time, in the novel, it has vividly shown the difficult relationship between mothers and daughters and the life of the immigrant families. After that, the novel The Joy Luck Club has been remade the same name movie and released in 1993, which also got big succeed in this movie version. In comparison research on an individual’s preference, more audiences will prefer the movie version, because the tone, background music and the visual impact are better than the book version.

1. What motivated Jing-mei’s mother to create the Joy Luck Club in China and again in America?

The process of identity formation embodied in the characters of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club illustrates the key concepts found within postcolonialism.

The boundaries of love in the movie-greed for money, past engagements, social class- are crafted by the desires and wants of each character to benefit their own satisfaction, not taking into account the other partner or even the lasting love at stake. The couples in the movie must reach down into the deepest point of their existence to realize the boundaries that love has upon them and more importantly how realistic their love is of overcoming them. This is a stunning realization for Marianne, newly broken hearted, lying in bed for weeks with no signs of her sickness fading, still clenching on to her lost love to Willoughby. Physically, she is struggling, but mentally she is in a state of total bewilderment.

1. Address 2 ICC scenes/themes you can identify with.  Reflect on these and include examples.