Main Characters In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

The marital conflicts between Ying-Ying and her husband was one of the marital conflicts that stood out. In the film her husband had been having an affair and one day he brought the lady home with him. It was like he wanted her to know he was having an

Mu Ying was already been different because of her various qualities, “Though in her fifties,she didn't have a single gray hair;she was a little plump,but because of her long legs and arms she appeared rather queenly”(Jin,82). This quote examines her physical characteristics which exceeded expectations for a woman her age.So, her being a free spirit made it even harder for people to except her, like when Mu was explaining the love she yearned from a man and Bare Hips’ mother intervened. Jin explains, “You're wrong,Mu Ying;You have your own man, who doesn't lack an arm or a leg. It's wrong to have others' men and more wrong to pocket their money”(Jin,84). Bare Hips is explaining how in their society, you can’t just choose to have sex with whoever you want once you make a commitment, this shows the societies heavily family oriented mindset. So, this sort of behavior,by Mu Ying, had been so known to the society as a whole,so much so,that even when her husbands’ character was questioned; Mu Ying was the recipient of most of the backlash. Hence, when Meng Su emerges spontaneously from the crowd and begs for liberation of his wife to the Red Guard,Jin explains, “Old Whore doesn't deserve that good-hearted man;She's heartless and knows only how to sell her thighs”(Jin,83). Bare Hips’ mother is putting a strong emphasis on good versus evil, Mu Ying being the evil, and this strong emphasis is intended to

When Jing Mei recognizes the similarities between her mother and herself she begins to understand not only her mother but herself as well. There are subtle connections and likenesses from the beginning between Jing Mei and her mother that Jing Mei does not see. The book commences with Jing Mei taking her mother's place at the mah jong table, creating a similarity between them from the beginning. Suyuan dies two months before the start of the book, and therefore is not able to tell the stories. Jing Mei has learned and must tell her stories in her place, forming another parallelism between mother and daughter. Because Suyuan is dead, Jing Mei must act in place of her mother when she goes to meet her Chinese sisters in China. Throughout the book Jing Mei takes the place of Suyuan, showing she and her mother

She was very pretty when she was a young girl. She was educated like every Chinese woman used to be: To be obedient, to honor one's parents, one's husband and to try to please him and his family. Ying-Ying was not taught to use her own digression and make her own way through life.

The mother in the story tries everything in her power to make Jing-mei famous in some way. Yet Jing-mei was content to being herself.

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.

In contrast, during the era of The Story Yingying, the cultural norm for a woman was to be submissive, patient, and passive. Yingying upheld all of these cultural standards. After meeting Zhang for the first time Yingying showed no interest in him at all but overtime Yingying finally gave into Zhang and fell in love and they became engaged. Unfortunately, Zhang had to leave for a year to go take a civil service examination, but he promised her he would come back to her. She waited patiently and after a year, her fiancé returned but shortly after had to leave again to retake the examination. Again she waited patiently for his return, but he never came back. After waiting for years for her fiancé to return, she became eager to

In Six Records of a Floating Life, Shen Fu writes of his wife, “Yün came to this world a woman, but she had the feelings and abilities of a man.” (Fu: 89) Shen Fu and Yün considered each other to be intellectual equals. However, their relationship was still constrained within the gender roles set by their society. They lived during the Qing dynasty, which was a prosperous time for China (“The Manchus”: 266) but also a time when, as Professor Scarlett states in the lecture Daily Life in Imperial China, “the outside world was for men and the inside world was for women.” Shen Fu and Yün’s relationship was pushing the bounds of their culture, but they still kept (mostly) within the lines of social acceptability.

In the chapter “Waiting Between the Trees” Ying-ying’s past in China that she has kept from her daughter is revealed. When she was young she believed that she was too good for any man, however eventually she realized she had to settle and married an indecent man, despite her being extremely vain. She had given up herself for this man, only for him to

In this time in China, the role that women and men had were very different from each other. Women were expected to be quite, obedient, and respectful. While men were the provider, the intellectual and the decision maker in the family. In Shen Fu and his wife, Yun marriage it started out like the typical relationship in eightieth century China, each one fulfilling the roles that society had in place for them. But as they became to know each other more, Shen Fu saw Yun real personality and wanted someone to experience life, so he started to encourage her to be herself and told her she didn’t have to live up to this gender stereotypes for women. They both were always

As she recalls back on this time by telling her daughter what she calls her Kweilin story, Suyuan describes her feeling during this horrible time as “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?” (22) At this point in her life Suyuan was separated from her husband who is in the military and eventually is forced to abandon her two young daughters. This aspect of Suyuan’s life parallels the life of Amy Tan’s mother. Daisy tan was also married to a military man during the Chinese Civil War and like Suyuan was forced to abandon her two daughters in Shanghai. This was an experience that would affect her mother for the rest of her life and a story she would continue to tell and never forget. The life of Amy Tan is also a parallel to the life of Jing-Mei Woo of “June”. As a young girl June was forced to play the piano and practice constantly to become the best like Amy Tan was as a child. Along with playing the piano Suyuan also had high expectations for June as far as her future. She wanted her daughter to be the best in her class and go off to medical school to become a well educated doctor, the same expectation’s Amy Tan’s mother had for her. Both daughters decided to follow their dreams and

Jing-Mei finds a new person that was determined to fight against her mother. Moreover, Jing Mei

As Jing-mei grew up, she remembers many times when her mom tells her to watch and learn, or when she talks about future goals that she has for her. Jing-mei’s mother made it

Qi Lao was raised to be a sweet girl, later to find out how much she could use this to her advantage to get anything she wanted, especially from her parents. Their family was well to do, and Qi Lao would constantly ask for everything and everything, and in turn receive just as that. Her Mother was a humble but timid young women, always giving into to her precious daughters wishes. While her Father did more or less the same, but in a careless way in being too preoccupied. Even though her Father was a half demon, and her mother a human, it wasn't really anything to be questioned about only later after something had peaked her interest.

Chapter twenty-eight develops some insights into the relationship between Bao-yu, Dai-yu, and Bao-chai. There are some discreet hints that Bao-chai should be Bao-yu’s wife, especially when Yuan-chun, the Imperial Consort, sends gifts to the Jia family and the presents for Bao-yu and Bao-chai complement each other perfectly, but Dai-yu’s gift is different from theirs. Even Dai-yu undermines herself saying that “I’m not equal to the honour. You forget, I’m not in the gold and jade class like you and your Cousin Bao. I’m only a common little wall-flower” (65). A part of me wishes that Dai-yu would be more self-confident and accepting of herself because then there would be less arguments between her and Bao-yu and prevent her inevitable, dark fate