The Joy Luck Club, No-No Boy, And Stealing Buddha's Dinner

Parenting is always a debatable topic, especially here in America. Every person has their own opinion on how a child should be disciplined and raised. In Amy Chua’s “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior”, Chua explains different aspects of Chinese parenting and how it has been effective in her life. She claims that by breaking a child down and pushing them to their full potential, the child will become more confident and very successful. Through the use of several different rhetorical devices, Chua supports and weakens her claim and expresses a controversial way of parenting.

In Amy tans short stories Rules of the Game, Fish Cheeks, and Two Kinds part of the novel the Joys Luck Club uses topics concerning the limits and connections in the relationships between mothers and their daughters. In an Asian society, especially Chinese society assumes a vital part in every one of the three short stories, giving the primary conflict an interesting plot. Amy Tans short stories for the most part depict the inconveniences and strain between Chinese immigrant moms and their Americanized daughters through their common experiences in a captivating way. The daughters disregard the Chinese part of their heritage and personality and grasp the American side. They ponder their adolescence up with solid order and desires that the greater part of them have not met prompting future blame. Presently as developed ladies with their own particular families, the Americanized daughters mirror the past with contradictions they had with their Chinese society. Every daughter in the story’s in the long run perceives how their tradition and generation had huge influence in forming their characters making them grasp their Chinese legacy.

It is true that the ways the parents raise their children will decide how well the children grow, especially the mothers who impact their children the most. There is no right or wrong in how a mother takes care of her children. All of them want the best for their children. The only difference is the level of intensity in how to raise a child. In Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School believes that the ways Chinese mothers raise their children are the most effective ways. Her main purpose of this article is to state the differences between Western mothers and Chinese mothers which

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.

It is known that mothers would do anything for their children in order to guide them through their life experiences, but some mothers impose their will on their kids causing pressure and enmity. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom by Amy Chua and The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan exemplify different types of mother-daughter relationships using a contrast in tone. Both writers discuss issues between a mother and a daughter concerning learning to play an instrument. Amy Chua’s diction reflects an overbearing yet passionate tone; leading the readers to believe that Lulu and Chua have a close relationship despite the tenseness in their interaction. Amy Tan’s tone expresses resentment and bitterness; generating thoughts that Tan and her mother have a distant relationship.

Mother-child relationships come in all different types of forms within The Joy Luck Club, No-No Boy, and Stealing Buddha’s Dinner. Some of these relationships are rooted in frustration while others are rooted in bitterness. Overall, the majority of the mother-child relationships in these texts are exceedingly distant and tense, which is not uncommon in the Asian culture. There are an abundance of possible explanations for this such as the pressure a mother puts on their child, high expectations that the mother’s holds for their child and the child’s resentment towards them, as well as the lack of communication between mother and child. Furthermore, the majority of the mother-child relationships

Everyone wants to have a good relationship with your mother for your entire life, but sometimes it might be a bad relationship with your father or mother in your life. In Amy Chua’s novel Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom there is a caring mother(Chua) trying to have a good relationship with her daughter when she was young. However in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club there is a bad relationship with a bitter chinese mother towards her young chinese daughter(Tan) in San Francisco. In both memoirs by Amy Tan and Amy Chua there is irony, diction, and tone to describe the mother-daughter relationship within the memoir.

Mother-daughter relationships vary from acting like sisters to not speaking to each other for a week. Yet when things become difficult, a mother and daughter can always rely on each other. The excerpts from Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, each explain personal experiences from their own mother-daughter relationships. Chua portrays a tense, caring tone throughout the excerpt, while Tan uses a more hostile, strict tone.

Mother-daughter relationships are shown in several ways throughout the world. This sort of relationship is supposed to portray a mother that is supportive of her child’s needs and passions. In the excerpts from Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom by Amy Chua, and the novel, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, two very differents relationships are presented. Although both excerpts share the same theme, Chua exhibits the tone of a caring mother and an irritated child, while, Amy Tan presents a mother that acts in a hostile manner, as her daughter is resentful towards her.

They are very co-dependent when they are younger and they imitate the parents, therefore it is important to remain positive because then the child would echo that and grow to understand that their actions have an effect on people.That is why it’s important to have good communication because the infant needs to feel safe and be able to explore. But if there is a disagreement between the child and the parents, where the parent seems distant, then the child could become closed off, that is why it is important if that happens, to repair the relationship. It will allow the baby to learn from those interactions and transform it from a negative experience to a positive response.

There is no doubt that a mother’s relationship with their daughter is important. Sometimes though the relationship can be strained due to the mother. A mother can do many different things to strain the relationship. Chinese writers Amy Tan and Amy Chua both write about mother daughter relationships with contrasting tones in their excerpts “The Violin” (Amy Chua) and “Jing Mei Woo: Two Kinds” (Amy Tan). Amy Chua’s tone in “The Violin” is a lot more gentle and effective than Amy Tan’s tone in “Jing Mei Woo: Two Kinds”.

Perhaps the most intriguing and interesting biographical theme that is repeated throughout the novels is the traditional mother-daughter dynamics and expectations. The importance of family and filial respect for parents is a crucial part of East Asian culture.The family has and still is often called the basic social unit in China (Welty 198). In Asian culture children are required “to be obedient and respectful in all cases to their parents” (Welty 253). Mother and daughter relationships are an especially intriguing dynamic because in the traditional cultures, women were often second class and did not retain much respect. This idea is explored in The Joy Luck Club as Ying-ying St. Clair says “I know this because I was raised the Chinese way:

Mothers are supposed to be the one person that their daughters can look up to above anybody else, but that is not always the case. Amy Chua’s Battle of the Tiger Mom and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club portray very conflicting mother-daughter relationships through their tone. Amy Chua’s excerpt “The Violin” takes a more tense and frustrated tone during their conflict, but not one that demonstrates a poor relationship between Chua and her daughter. However, the tone of Tan’s excerpt “Jing-Mei Woo; Two Kinds” is far more aggressive, and gives off a feeling of hostility rather than just frustration.

A relationship between a mother and her child is one of the most basic human interactions. Mother-daughter relationships can be complex but also filled with love. Mothers and daughters often seem farther away from eachother than they really are. In Amy Chua’s memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom the tone is tense and annoyed, while in Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club the tone is more hostile and resentful.

“I expect nothing but the best. If it is not an A, you are not striving to the best of your ability. You cannot be a musician; you have to be a doctor. You can only be someone when you ARE someone. That will only happen after you take ten extra lessons outside of school, and you also have to learn how to play all types of instruments. My main point is, you have to be the best.” For many centuries, cultures from all around have had many debates on the correct way of parenting. In recent times, a specific type of parenting has been in the spotlight: the parenting of Asian mothers. They are known as very passive and submissive to strangers, but to their own kids they turn around 360 and becoming very aggressive and demanding. Many Westerners think Easterners way of parenting is cruel and inhumane. Westerners think that Asian mothers have goals that are unrealistic; they are selfish because they are simply living their dream through their children. Asian mothers, on the other hand, claim they do it all out of love.