Joy Luck Club Analysis

Clair is a classic example of “like mother like daughter.” After a tragic past in China, Ying-ying becomes a passive wife. She goes through the motions, not really letting anyone know what she truly feels. When she has a daughter, Lena, she turns out just like her mother. In her marriage to Harold, Lena rarely speaks her mind and instead allows Harold to do whatever he pleases. All her life, Ying-ying has had the ability to foresee things that will happen; this trait is passed on to Lena. Despite having a knowledge of things to come, Ying-ying never tries to prevent them. When Lena’s marriage is failing, Ying-ying tries to get her daughter to act. Readers are left not knowing whether or not Lena will act to save her marriage. When the wobbly table falls and breaks the vase on top of it, Lena responds saying, “‘I knew it would happen’” (Tan 165). Her mother responds with “‘Then why you don’t stop it?’” (165). This question is not focused on the vase, but rather on Lena’s failing marriage. She can act and prevent it from failing, or she can allow the marriage to fall

“I threw away my foolish innocence to protect myself. And then I taught my daughter to shed her innocence so she would not be hurt as well.” (Tan 213). The Joy Luck club is a book containing sixteen stories told by four mother-daughter pairs, as well as four anecdotes about no particular character. The mothers are all Chinese Immigrants. Each mother's story details their experiences in China, while the daughters talk about life in America. The exception to this is with the Woo family, where the mother, Suyuan, has passed away, and the daughter, June, tells her stories for her. In ‘The Joy Luck Club’, Amy Tan uses the stories of the mothers to illustrate the similarities and differences in the ways the mothers and daughters think about

The Joy Luck Club is a book about the struggles of Chinese women and their daughters integrating into American society. Several patterns occur throughout many of the families throughout the book. Daughters’ independence and rebelling against their mothers, repetition of their mother's past actions, and the daughters misunderstanding their mothers. These all contribute to the pattern and themes that repeat in the book.

Furthermore, since Lena understood the power of language from the profound effect it had on her childhood, Lena purposely mistranslated between her dad, Clifford, and her mom, Ying-Ying, in order to hinder any harmful thoughts between the married couple. For instance, when Ying-Ying is describing her miscarriage and accusing herself of “killing my (her) own son” (Tan

In the novel, “The Joy Luck Club”, the moms make many decisions that they think are best but aren’t very favored by the children, especially their daughters. Much like an article called, “A heartache of an immigrant family”, Where it talks of a family that was constantly torn because one mother decided it’d be best if she left her children for

“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.

Relationships define a connection between two beings, whether it be through blood, friendship, or romance. In most cases, the first group that people experience is with their families. The kinship people are born into comes with ups and downs, which may cause a rift between both parties. Thus, maintaining a seamless connection may become a struggle between two dissimilar individuals, “Like many relationships, we have our struggles, our misunderstandings, and our miscommunications. We are very different people, but also very similar at the same time” (Goreski). Amy Tan, an author of numerous novels, understands the battle of relationships, especially between culturally diverse mothers and daughters. In one of Tan’s novels, The Joy Luck Club, she writes to get the point across of how difficult it is for contrasting cultures to communicate with one another, “...out of an intense concern with the individual artistic choices she was making at every level and at every moment” (Evans 3). The passionate message Tan stresses in the novel demonstrate how crucial communication is to her, specifically between a mother and daughter.

This article was written by Amy Tan, who is an English major and an author. Tan originally spoke about this topic at a group discussion about her book, The Joy Luck Club and later turned it into an essay for The Threepenny Review. She wrote this article to explain to writers everywhere that there are many different styles of English and that even someone who has majored in English and has published works can speak unconventional English. In “Mother Tongue” from The WakeTech Reader, Amy Tan (1989) examines the different versions of English that she finds herself using in different situations as well as the English her mother uses and how her mother’s version of English has a major impact on the way her mother is treated by strangers.

Lena's mother made her feel incompetent about her house. Lena's mother was coming to stay with her and her husband Harold for awhile because they were re-wiring her apartment in San Francisco. Once her mother arrived she immediately gave her mother a tour. While touring the house her mother noticed many things wrong with it including the floors, and two lopsided roofs. Lena states “During the brief tour of the house, she's already found the flaws. She says the slant of the

In The Joy Luck Club, four Chinese women immigrated to San Francisco in hopes of a better life for both themselves and their children. The mother members of The Joy Luck Club wanted a greater variety of opportunities, and hoped to find them in America. In most immigration cases, people expect to find better living and working conditions in another populated country. And, usually, they do. In the article I chose based on immigration, a resident of the Rio Grande Valley named Adrian Guerrero said that his family moved to Texas in hopes for a better life for their children. Similarly to the mothers of The Joy Luck Club, Adrian’s family immigrated to America for a better life style. The article states, “Resident Adrian Guerrero said his

Stemming from the conflict of the desire to find one’s identity develops the theme of the lack of communication among mother and daughter. “To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.” This quote said by the American writer and professional speaker, Anthony Robbins, effectively describes the conflict of communication among the characters of The Joy Luck Club. Each of the four mothers and daughters demonstrates the problematic situation of talking to and understanding one another. For example, Jing-Mei and her mother Suyuan have different views of their Chinese culture. Suyuan is proud to have been born a Chinese woman and refuses to let go of her roots, continuing traditions after immigrating to America. On the other hand, Jing-Mei is embarrassed of her mothers pride and shows little interest in her heritage, due to being born and raised in America. The differences in attitudes of mother and daughter toward their Chinese heritage, makes it difficult to relate to one another. Suyuan has also undergone much suffering in her lifetime and cannot empathize with Jing-Mei’s lighthearted attitude.

When Jing-mei’s mother was living in Kweilin with her two baby girls, an army officer came to her house, telling her to go quickly to her husband in Chungking. Her friend bribed a man to steal a wheelbarrow and promised to warn her other friends that Kweilin was no longer safe. Suyuan packed all of her things into the wheelbarrow and began to push towards Chungking. When the wheel broke, she tied her babies across her body in scarves. She then took one bag of food and one bag of clothes in each hand. Soon, her hands began to bleed and she had to drop one bag after the other. By the time she reached Chungking, she had left everything behind, including the babies. She only had three silk dresses that she had worn one

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

After exploring the contradictions in the lives of the Joy Luck Club, such as strength and weaknesses, obedience and independence, individuality and society, joy and sadness, and hope and despair. It really got me thinking about my strengths and weaknesses as a person (and where they came from). Obviously, people's strengths and weaknesses are subjective, so during the course of this writing session I will either use my own personal opinion of what my strengths and weaknesses are or I will use my friends opinions on the subject.

The movie Joy Luck Club represents the changing of family history in Chinese society, which transfers to modern family style with traditional ideas. It is similar to the family history in Western culture. In the old time, people considered marriage as a tool to gain economic benefits and the connection within two families. In particular, marriage was decided by matchmakers and parents. Women could not marry with whomever they want instead of following the arranged marriage. In Lindo’s case, she had to marry with Huang Tai Tai's son, who was younger than her; when she was nine years old. After signing the commitment, she was considered as Huang Tai tai’s daughter and did not belong to her original family. In this case, it also represents the gender bias in the traditional society. Men’s power was over women, and they could do whatever they want. Women could not control their destinies and needed to obey their parents and their husbands. This traditional idea