The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

Women have been mentally abused throughout time creating a distraught conscience, which compels them to create a safer lifestyle. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan is a novel about eight women, four wives and four daughters, who moved from China to America. These four women meet in America and decide to meet once every week. The four mothers, Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair, decide to have their daughters, Jing-mei Woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, Waverly Jong, and Lena St. Clair, join them. These women dealt with oppression caused by their gender and finding a new style of living just they could be reassured of their safety. Tan argues that the societal-driven mistreatment towards women has a damaging psychological impact and forces

The novel, The Joy Luck Club describes the life of four mothers: Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair and their four daughters: Jing-mei "June" Woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, Waverly Jong, and Lena St. Clair. All four of these families fled China in the 1940s and tried to retain and maintain their culture and heritage. All of the four daughters are very Americanized and the mothers try to show and teach each of their daughters a little about the chinese culture. All these mothers hope to give their daughter strength, respect for herself, and to create a strong bond and relationship between themselves. Tan gives us something to relate to by telling us the story of Chinese women and their daughters. The all may

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.

Amy Tan said in the People Magazine in 1989 about her novel, The Joy Luck Club, “The book could be about any culture or generation and what is lost between them.” Amy Tan reveals that the mothers try to pass on their Chinese heritage and teach their American-born daughters to avoid the mistakes the mothers made growing up in China. However, the daughters often see their mothers’ attempts at guidance as attempting to control their lives. The mother and daughter pair of Lindo and Waverly epitomize this relationship, where Lindo tries to integrate Chinese and American cultures into her own life and Waverly tries to both be independent and keep her Chinese heritage. Although Waverly and Lindo do not mend their cultural conflicts completely, their experiences with one another allow them to change and accept one another.

In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, Waverly Jong is a dynamic character who shows her arrogance, selfishness and insecurities as the story progresses. On the first letter of Waverly’s name, W, sits a Mink, which symbolizes her desire for her mother’s approval. Throughout the novel, Waverly avoids Lindo’s criticism and fears her mother will not agree with her choices. This is evident in “Four Directions” when Waverly shows her mother the mink coat Rich bought her and Lindo responds, “This is no good… It is just leftover strips. And the fur is too short” (Tan 186). Waverly is destroyed by her mother’s criticism. After Lindo points out the coat’s flaws, Waverly can no longer see the good in it; she only values the things her mother values. Next, the “a” is formed by a crab, symbolizing selfishness. During New Year’s dinner at the Woo house, Waverly takes the best three crabs for her family. She does not care that she is a guest or that Suyuan had not planned on Shoshana eating crabs, she takes the best for herself, showing her self-centered nature. After the “a,” the “v” is formed by two dolls, symbolizing her childhood and her love for her daughter. Contrasting her negative traits, Waverly’s unfaltering love for Shoshana shows that she is willing to sacrifice her successes for her daughter’s prosperity, demonstrating that she is not as selfish as she is portrayed. A red candle is embedded in the “e” to highlight Waverly’s ignorance. She believes she is all knowing but does not

The first chapter of “The Joy Luck Club” is named after one mother, Suyuan Woo. The reader is introduced to Jing-Mei, her daughter, struggling to replace her mother in her spot at the mahjong table, as she died two months prior. In 1949, Suyuan Woo and her husband, Canning, left for America in effort for a better life-- two years before the birth of Jing-Mei. There, she joined a Chinese baptist church where she met the other core members of The (rendition of) Joy Luck Club: the Hsus, the Jongs, and the St. Clairs.

“I threw away my foolish innocence to protect myself. And then I taught my daughter to shed her innocence so she would not be hurt as well.” (Tan 213). The Joy Luck club is a book containing sixteen stories told by four mother-daughter pairs, as well as four anecdotes about no particular character. The mothers are all Chinese Immigrants. Each mother's story details their experiences in China, while the daughters talk about life in America. The exception to this is with the Woo family, where the mother, Suyuan, has passed away, and the daughter, June, tells her stories for her. In ‘The Joy Luck Club’, Amy Tan uses the stories of the mothers to illustrate the similarities and differences in the ways the mothers and daughters think about

The Joy Luck Club is a book about the struggles of Chinese women and their daughters integrating into American society. Several patterns occur throughout many of the families throughout the book. Daughters’ independence and rebelling against their mothers, repetition of their mother's past actions, and the daughters misunderstanding their mothers. These all contribute to the pattern and themes that repeat in the book.

“Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever”, Amy Tan wrote in The Joy Luck Club. This powerful quote not only exhibits the mindset that Amy has formed over the years, but also how various lessons has shaped her inner-being. Overcoming a past were all the odds were against her, even her mother, leaves Tan’s story worth being heard. Amy’s mixed heritage made adapting to the free life of America from an authoritarian Chinese parenting style difficult. The pivotal moment that altered Amy Tan’s life the most was breaking free from the philosophy that she had to chose one culture instead of accepting both.

Despite cultural and generational conflicts families face, the novel, Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, shows deep rooted, love filled relationship between a mother and a daughter. Daughters in the novel go through teenage rebellion causing a strained bond between them and their mothers. Consequently, the phase hurts their relationships, but benefits the families later on. “Which one is American? Which one is Chinese? Which one is better (266)?” The mothers and daughters go on the journey of life to find a balance between their two cultures. Along the way, the mothers learn life lessons from the daughters, causing the mothers in return, to teach them valuable lessons. Together the family members have an unbreakable bond filled with love.

(H) The life of women has drastically changed throughout the ages. (CIS) The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan portrays life in America and in China in the 1930’s for women. (GS1) When stories are true, there is more power behind them. (GS2) Novels need accuracy for the book to have feeling. (GS3) A rave-worthy novel needs truth to really draw the reader in. (thesis) Author Amy Tan accurately portrays life for Chinese women in the 1930’s and it enhances the power of the novel because the stories have true roots, the accuracy gives the book more feeling, and the truth behind the stories transports the reader into the novel.

The Joy Luck Club is a collection of many interrelated stories that are centered around the diverse emotional relationships of different mother and daughter relationships. Most of these mother daughter relationships are fragile and become even more distanced through history and heritage. In China, these mothers are forced to emigrate from China to America to escape a life full of poverty and war. America differs from this because the mothers struggle to raise their American born daughters in a completely different environment. The difference is extreme from growing up during the first quarter of the twentieth century in China, rather than raising their daughters in California. To this day, the mothers of present day China still believe and encourage their daughters to follow in their footsteps and praise chinese traditions. The mothers, Suyuan Woo, An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-Ying St. Clair and the daughters, Jing-Mei “June” Woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, Waverly Jong, and Lena St. Clair all have dynamic relationships that are evolving. In the novel, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, man’s relationship with his fellow man is unequal due to cultural traditions and generations.

Chinese-Americans authors Amy Tan and Gish Jen have both grappled with the idea of mixed identity in America. For them, a generational problem develops over time, and cultural displacement occurs as family lines expand. While this is not the problem in and of itself, indeed, it is natural for current culture to gain foothold over distant culture, it serves as the backdrop for the disorientation that occurs between generations. In their novels, Tan and Jen pinpoint the cause of this unbalance in the active dismissal of Chinese mothers by their Chinese-American children.

The Joy Luck Club In the novel, “The Joy Luck Club”, Amy Tan uses rivalry to reflect values and success. The different cultural views in this novel help to show how there is a battle between living as an American and having parents of a Chinese background. One example is the struggle for Waverly Jong and June Woo. Through the presumption of their mothers’ view of “happiness”, the two become indulged in a back and forth competition that consequently, dominates their lives’.

   The Joy Luck Club is the telling of a tale of struggle by four mothers and their four daughters trying to understand the issue of gender identity, how they each discover or lose their sense of self and what they mean to one another. Throughout the book each of the mothers works hard at teaching their daughters the virtues of Chinese wisdom while allowing the opportunities of American life. They try passing on a piece of themselves despite the great barriers that are built between the women. Each of the stories gives a wonderful glimpse into the Chinese culture and heritage that the mothers are trying to reveal to their daughters through the use of festivals, food dishes,