Relationships Between Mothers and Daughters in Tan's The Joy Luck Club

   In Amy Tan's novel, Joy Luck Club, the mother of Jing-mei recognizes only two kinds of daughters: those that are obedient and those that follow their own mind. Perhaps the reader of this novel may recognize only two types of mothers: pushy mothers and patient mothers.  The two songs, "Pleading Child" and "Perfectly Contented," which the daughter plays, reinforce the underlying tension in the novel. These songs represent the feelings that the daughter, Jing-mei, has had throughout her life.

    Of the many stories involving the many characters of "The Joy Luck Club", I believe the central theme connecting them all is the inability of the mothers and their daughters to communicate effectively.

The American is a selfish individualist that wants to do things his way and only lives to please himself. The

Throughout Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club, the reader can see the difficulites in the mother-daughter relationships.  The mothers came to America from China hoping to give their daughters better lives than what they had.  In China, women were “to be obedient, to honor one’s parents, one’s husband, and to try to please him and his family,” (Chinese-American Women in American Culture).  They were not expected to have their own will and to make their own way through life.  These mothers did not want this for their children so they thought that in America “nobody [would] say her worth [was] measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch…nobody [would] look down on her…” (3).  To

This guidance is shown especially in the story of Lena St. Clair and her mother Ying-Ying. When Ying-Ying visits Lena and her husband at their new home, she senses the uneasy and precarious nature of their marriage, and tries to warn her daughter of this through subtle comments during her stay. One of these comments, “’You put something else on top, everything else fall down. Chunwang chihan” (163), leads Lena to recognize how fragile and superficial her relationship with Harold is, and that realization allows her finally stand up to him. Ying-Ying’s experiences in her first marriage taught her this lesson the hard way, when the buildup of her husband’s cruelty led her to an inability to carry his child. Although Lena’s circumstances are far less drastic than her mother’s, the same “last straw” mentality can be applied to both situations. Ying-Ying’s wisdom from her past helps Lena to save her future before that straw falls, in addition to showing her the cracks in a foundation that she thought was unflawed. In this action, Ying-Ying’s past in China aids her in guiding Lena towards a better life than she had, the ultimate goal of motherhood that is reinforced throughout the

 In the Joy Luck Club, the author Amy Tan, focuses on mother-daughter relationships. She examines the lives of four women who emigrated from China, and the lives of four of their American-born daughters. The mothers: Suyuan Woo, An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-Ying St. Clair had all experienced some life-changing horror before coming to America, and this has forever tainted their perspective on how they want their children raised. The four daughters: Waverly, Lena, Rose, and Jing-Mei are all Americans. Even though they absorb some of the traditions of Chinese culture they are raised in America and American ideals and values.  This inability to communicate and the clash

The book The Joy Luck Club is a novel written by Amy Tan, who is very famous in writing about mother-daughter relationships. There are four pairs of mothers and daughters whose stories are told in The Joy Luck Club. All of the mothers were born in China and came to America because of some kind of problem, but their daughters were born in the United States. Due to the fact that the daughters were born in the United States, they are extremely Americanized. Consequently, they do not value the Chinese heritage which their mothers valued dearly. As the daughters are growing up, this conflict between them increases. Suyuan Woo and her daughter, June or Jing-mei, two characters from the book, had major conflicts over the Chinese belief system of

   "I have already experienced the worst. After this, there is no worst possible thing" (Amy Tan 121). Throughout The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan tells stories of how mothers use the misfortunes in their lives, to try to teach their daughters about life. Many of the mothers had bad experiences in their pasts and do not want to see their daughters live through the same types of problems. They try to make their daughters' lives as easy and problem free as possible. However, the daughters do not see this as an act of love, but rather as an act of control. In the end, the daughters realize that their mothers tried to use their experiences to teach them not to give up hope, and to look at

“Here is how I came to love my mother.  How I saw her my own true nature.  What was beneath my skin.  Inside my bones.” (Tan 40)

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.

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.

Lindo’s upbringing was significant because her family was very traditional. As a result of her family abiding by tradition, Lindo was betrothed to Tyan-yu as a young girl. Lindo’s family treated her as if she was from a different family. When Lindo’s family lost everything in a flood, her father decided to move the family to Wushi. Lindo was old enough to move in with Tyan-yu’s family, so her family left her in Taiyuan with her future in-laws. When Lindo moved in with her new in-laws, Huang Taitai immediately put Lindo to work cooking, cleaning, and sewing. Lindo not only lost her family by moving in with the Huangs; she also lost her childhood innocence since she was forced to abandon playing with other children so she could be put to work. As a child, Lindo faced adversity due to her lack of American opportunities and therefore matured quickly.

History, Culture and Identity of Mothers and Daughters in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club

Amy Tan is an American Born Chinese, daughter of immigrants, and her family shares many features with the families depicted in her novels. Tan's novels offer some glimpses of life in China while developing the themes of mother-daughter relations, cultural adaptation and "women with a past".  Tan’s novels share many themes and elements, but this paper will focus mainly on two episodes of the novel The Joy Luck Club: "The Joy Luck Club" and "Waiting Between the Trees"; and will make references to The Kitchen's God Wife and The Hundred Secret Senses.

Conflicts play a crucial role in novels. Without conflict, novels would be uninteresting and very dull. Conflicts are seen in many different forms, as internal conflicts, when a character must deal with private problems, and external conflicts, when a character must deal with problems originating from an external source, like another person or society in general. Some common conflicts seen in other novels are person versus society, as in The Scarlet Letter when Hester is forced to face her mistake of adultery due to the obsession of the unforgiving town. An example of an internal conflict is present within Animal Dreams, when Cody must decide where she belongs and