In the novel The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, four Chinese mother-daughter pairs, each with her own unique story, have deep connections with each other. At the beginning of the novel they each seem like ordinary women, but as the novel progresses, it becomes clear that these women are more than just mothers, daughters, or wives; they can also be considered heroes according to Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell says a hero is someone who undergoes a departure, where the person is confronted with a problem that they must overcome; a fulfillment, where the person finally overcomes the problem; and a return, where the person passes on what they gain and learn from the experiences in the form of a "life-giving elixir"(Campbell). This “life-giving …show more content…
Not only is she forced into an arranged marriage, but she has no love for the boy that she is about to marry. From the day that she is arranged into a marriage and thereafter, she must deal with the fact that she will belong to someone else and that she is going to be the property of her husband. Her departure begins when her own family treats her “as if [she] belonged to someone else” (51). This shows the beginning of her departure because it is the start of the trials that she must overcome and deal with to continue with her journey. To make matters worse, Lindo’s family has to leave her because of a flood that wiped out all of her family’s land. Another trial that she faces is to get out her love-less marriage. She must leave safely while also keeping the honor and dignity of her family name intact. In order to overcome these trials, Lindo must transition to the fulfillment stage. While in the fulfillment stage, a person must pass and overcome the trials and problems that they are faced with in order to move on in there hero journey. Lindo faces the challenge of getting out of her marriage, but comes up with a clever way of getting out of it without dishonoring her family name. Lindo decides to use her gift of “invisible strength” to her advantage. She decides to manipulate her mother-in-law’s superstitions and tell her about the dream she had with Tyan-yu’s grandfather saying that if she does not get out of the marriage that Tyan-yu will die.
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.
In addition, the author helps the reader understand the selfishness of the mother when the reader finds out she have stole the Persian Carpet “several months before” (230) the divorce and puts the blame on Ilya, the poor blind man. Furthermore, the visit of the children is supposed to signal a fresh start for the family. The mother even emphasizes she wants the girls to come “live with [them]” (229). Yet again, even if they meet in order to reunite, characterized by a situational irony, they see themselves separated because of her mother selfish decisions.
There is a common theme of hope throughout the stories of The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. Even in the face of immeasurable danger and strife, the mothers and daughters in the book find themselves faithful in the future by looking to the past, which is only helped by the format of Tan’s writing. This is shown specifically in the stories of Suyuan and Jing-Mei Woo, Lena and Ying-Ying St. Clair, and Lindo and Waverly Jong. The vignette structure of The Joy Luck Club allows the stories to build on one another in a way that effortlessly displays both the happy and dark times in each mother’s life, which lets their experiences act as sources of background and guidance to their daughters in times when they need it most.
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.
Lindo and Waverly both face the same major external conflict: the problem of marriage. Whereas Lindo’s marriage was an arranged
This left Lindo horrified, and Waverly never got the chance to tell her that she and Rich were going to get married. Waverly woke up the next morning, tense. She rushed to her parents’ home determined to tell her mother of the engagement. She woke Lindo up as she began to cry. Lindo worried about what had happened, to which Waverly responded that nothing had happened and that she and Rich were getting married. Her mother told her that she had already known. Waverly had assumed that Lindo despised Rich, but Lindo was surprised that her daughter believed so. When Waverly tried to explain why she thought so, her mother said, her face containing a look of sorrow, “Ai-ya, why do you think these bad things about me? So you think your mother is this bad! You think I have a secret meaning. But it is you who has this meaning, Ai-ya! She
Unlike several of the other characters in The Joy Luck Club, Lindo Jong embodies the hero’s journey as first shown by the completion of the first stage: departure. Lindo begins her journey at the age of two when the village matchmaker arranges for her to be married to Huang Tyan-yu. Despite her lack of consent, Lindo recognizes and states that “even if I had known I was getting a bad husband, I had no choice, now or later” (Tan 51). Lindo grows up in the countryside of China, where all power over decisions is given to the parents. Should she face difficult hardships later on in her life, she does not have the authority to better her situation. Lindo’s weakness--which is her natural obedience to her mother in order to prevent her from “losing face”--in combination with her lack of choice in any matter will inevitably leads to trouble as she receives her call to adventure. Speaking of call to adventure, although Lindo began her journey ten years ago, she has yet to cross the threshold into her heroic venture. A natural disaster, however, changes that. At the age of twelve, her life completely changes when a flood “destroyed all the wheat [Lindo’s] family had planted that year and made the land useless for years to come” (Tan 53). Due to the flood,
In Lindo Jong’s narrative it becomes evident that Lindo and her daughter share a strength of self identity that allows them to stay true to their inner selves. Lindo had acquired her strength while getting out of a miserable selected marriage. “I... Looked in the mirror... I was strange. I was pure. I had genuine thoughts inside that no one could see. That no one could ever take away from me away from me. I was like the wind... I draped the large embroidered red scarf over my face and covered these thoughts. But underneath the scarf I still knew who I was. I
Culture defines humanity. Culture makes humans different than any other living organism ever known. Culture is what makes humans unique, and yet culture is easily the most misunderstood characteristic of individuals. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan develops the theme of incomplete cultural understanding leads to an inability to communicate one’s true intentions through juxtaposition and conflict between mothers and daughters and their cultures.
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan follows multiple Chinese-American women who struggle with their self-identity and creating a balance between American and Chinese culture. Because of their immigration and many hardships in life, many of the women feel like they cannot truly tell who they are anymore, and throughout the novel these women are portrayed as ghosts. Ghosts are used to symbolize these women because they share many parallels including being only a remnant of who they once were, or who they could be. Ying-ying St. Clair is one of the women, who has a daughter named Lena St. Clair, she has had a troubled past in China, which has made her lose her fighting spirit, and her spirit in general. Ying-ying is fully aware of her loss of spirit and is embarrassed because she considers ghosts to be shameful and weak, and wants to save her daughter, Lena, from her fate.
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 was arranged to marry Tyan-yu. While the marriage was short-lived, Tyan-yu constantly lied to Lindo, and Tyan-yu’s mother treated Lindo like an object to be bartered between families. Lindo experiences depression being trapped in this lifestyle, so she decides to flee to America in order to escape it. When reminiscing on her marriage Lindo says, “I had no choice, now or later. That was how backward families in the country were. We were always the last to give up stupid old-fashioned customs” (Tan ). Similar to the mother in the beginning, Tan creates appeal to pathos, forcing the reader to sympathize with Lindo. The reader’s sympathy to Lindo allows Tan to expand on the larger issue of sexism, creating an emotional and educational tone in order to coax the reader into, again, understanding the true scale of sexism. Tan drilling this larger idea of sexism into readers changes the reader’s perspective. With new perspective, readers notice the need for change to establish equality between both sexes. Therefore, Tan is using her writing as a tool for a deeper subject: exciting change within the world, and thus, exemplifying Jong’s words.
Being strong and independent women no longer matters as the men that they will call their husbands enter their lives. Lesego and Kegoletile both represent the male figures and the change that Life and Neo must endure as they conquer marriage. Lesego represents the authoritative male that is respected by all the people of the rural village for his wealth and judgment. Life is attracted to
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