Summary Of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

She was my mother,” (31).  Jing-Mei says this to her aunts after her mother had died, and she had to take your position in joy luck.  She felt like she never really knew her mother because of their miscommunication.  Suyuan Woo, Jing-Mei’s mother, had many hopes and good intentions for her daughter. While Jing-Mei wanted to be herself and still please her mother, Suyuan wanted her daughter to be a child prodigy. Always wanting the best for her daughter, Suyuan hoped Jing-Mei would one day become an extraordinary pianist.  Although Jing-Mei played the piano, she never put forth much effort into the music because her best was not good enough for her mother.  Nonetheless, she stopped playing the piano.  “I could only be me,” (154).  She could not be something that she was not; she could not live up to her mother’s expectations.  This symbolized one of Jing-Mei’s songs, “Pleading Child.”  Suyuan continues to put all the pressure on Jing-Mei so that she will not become like her mother for all the reasons she had come to America; hopes for a better life.

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.

“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 excerpt “Two Kinds,” written by Amy Tan, the author expresses her personal perception on cultural tradition along with the conflict of her mother’s opposing views. Upon travelling to America, the mother of Jing-mei continued to carry-out and force her culture onto her daughter in order to preserve their culture. Despite her seemingly increasing progress, rebellion and disobedience

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.

In the article “Being an immigrant in the United States today means..,” an interview from one of the many immigrants here in the United States stated that they “try our best to look American” because of the worry that anytime they might have to prove their citizenship and documentation just for being Indian. Similarly, in the prologue of the book The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, the narrator describes the journey of a woman across the ocean towards America while saying, “Over there nobody will look down on her, because I will make her speak only perfect American English!” Both these scenarios describe how immigrants are not being fully accepted by American society. It shows that different ethnicities and races are still widely separated no matter the country both live in together. The fear of being frowned upon by Americans and fellow Chinese civilians in America by the woman and the fear of getting picked out because of the color of their skin by the interviewees prove that these people have to live with the pressure of perfecting American ways and culture.

“Your mother is in your bones” (Tan 40). This theme is present throughout the novel, The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan. The novel consists of four stories of mothers and daughters and their relationship. Each family came from different backgrounds but still share the commonality of Chinese culture. Each mother stayed true to their beliefs while each daughter allowed themselves to embrace their American lives. The conflicting ideas between generations made their relationships more powerful and brought them closer together in the end. Amy Tan uses symbolism to emphasize the meaning and strength of each relationship. The symbols were able to connect the two by sharing a concept to both of their lives. There were many different symbols that relate

In the story “Two Kinds”, author Amy Tan, who is a Chinese-American, describes the conflicts in the relationship of a mother and daughter living in California. The protagonist in this story Jing-mei Woo’s mother is born and raised in China, and immigrates to the United States to escape from the Chinese Civil War. For many years she maintained complete Chinese traditional values, and has been abided by it deliberately. This kind of traditional Chinese culture has also affected her daughter profoundly. However, Jing-mei is born and raised in the United States. Despite she has a Chinese mother; she is unfamiliar and uncomfortable with Chinese

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

Since jing-mei is raised in America as An American, she has the mindset to follow her own mind or heart but her mother is Chinese and she feels as if Jing-mei should follow whatever she thinks is good for

Suyuan and her daughter had a special bond. She would tell her daughter stories about her twins, but Jing-Mei never knew if it was real or not. “I never thought my mother’s Kweilin story was anything but a Chinese fairy tale. The ending always changed,” Jing-Mei would say. (Pg. 25) We learn about Suyuan through her daughter and the other ladies from Joy Luck Club because she has already died when the novel takes place. In life, Suyuan felt that her daughter didn’t know much about her, and Jing-Mei wanted to know her but didn’t know how to. Jing-Mei says, “A friend once told me that my mother and I were alike, that we had the same wispy gestures, the same girlish laugh and sideways look.” In response her mother says, “You don’t even know little percent of me! How can you be me?” (pg.27) Ironically enough, they do turn out to have the same characteristics. Both are strong willed women. Suyuan used to use Jing-Mei to try to show off to her friends. She got her into piano lessons to show what a genius she is. It ends up that Jing-Mei fails at piano and her mother is let down. Yet she still responds with an explanation that Jing-Mei is a late-bloomer, and compares her to Einstein. As long as she tries to be as much as she can be her mother is proud, but Jing-Mei doesn’t see this, she thinks that her mother wants her to be a genius. One chapter titled “Best Quality,” is about a Chinese New Year dinner party. Suyuan is serving crabs and goes to buy

Culture is best described as a common set of core values, traditions, and rituals that a specific group of people share. With that being said, as more and more cultures begin to blend together and migration becomes a larger part of modern life, new cultures are always forming and being adopted. Even though cultures are always changing, they can still be categorized according to two types of culture. The first type of culture is ?high? culture, which refers to a more aesthetic and advanced culture such as that of the Chinese.[endnoteRef:1] ?High? culture is usually characterized by refined and complex values, whereas the second type of dynamic culture, ?low? culture, is sometimes seen as less refined and aesthetic.[endnoteRef:2] In addition, ?low? culture refers to the general life and traditions in countries such as the United States.[endnoteRef:3] Not only are Chinese and American Culture defined in two distinct ways, but they also have completely different views on family, commitment, competitiveness, and much more. With that being said, Amy Tan?s esteemed novel ?The Joy Luck Club,? not only chronicles the struggles of melding traditional American and Chinese views, it also shows how the cultural differences that result lead to miscommunication and separation between the daughters and their mothers. [1: Joel Dubois, ?The Essential Element of Culture,? Arts and Ideas of Asia: Medieval and Modern, 2009,

In Woman Warrior, the main character, Maxine gives readers details of what it was like growing up in China. “Chinese-Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities, one family, your mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is Chinese? What is Chinese tradition and what is the movies?” (Kingstone 5). Growing-up Chinese-American can be hard, In the Chinese culture mothers teach their children to run away from evil because any wrongdoers will be punished in another life. On the other hand, in the Japanese culture, parents teach their children to stand up for what they believe in no matter what. Readers see a sense of independency in the “The Dream of Water, “In Japan, either you are an insider or an outsider, never anything in between. When an insider stays at a minshuku, it isn’t at all like business; it’s a family visit. With an outsider, on the other hand, the hostess does not even make small talk, much less fetch slippers and offer tea in her own room. I was an outsider” (Mori 45). Mori lost her mother at a young age, but was taught to be her own person.

In this passage from “Waiting Between the Trees” from The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan illustrates how mothers sometimes lose the ability to keep their child safe due to the lack of communication. As shown in the passage, the mother struggles to communicate her emotions and feelings with her daughter due to the chasm between them, meanwhile illustrating the repetition of regret of miscommunication.

To introduce, the universally acclaimed novel, The Joy Luck Club, written by Amy Tan contains numerous subjects and topics that may be perceived as contentious by the reader including grief, suicide, marital relations, and much more. Tan’s view on a particular subject can be deduced by the reader through extensive analysis of both interactions among the characters and through the progression of the story’s plot. One of the most apparent opinions frequently bolstered by the author throughout the novel is that people should be able to make decisions for themselves rather than having somebody else, namely their parents, make those decisions for them. In the following example, Jing-Mei lashes out at her mother for forcing her to play the piano as a hobby as she had explained to her mother previously that the activity was something she loathed to do. The conversation between Jing-Mei and her mother boils over and eventually, Jing finds herself denouncing her Chinese heritage, “She was frighteningly strong, half pulling, half carrying me toward the piano as I kicked the throw rugs under my feet… ‘You want me to be something that I’m not! I’ll never be the kind of daughter you want me to be…’ It felt like worms and toads and slimy things were crawling out of my chest, but it also felt good, as if this bad side of me had surfaced, at last,” (Tan 141-142). In this scene, Jing’s mom is portrayed as