Who Is Lena In The Joy Luck Club

As seen throughout the play, Mama expresses concern for the well-being of her family, and is most effective whenever she expresses concern for Travis. Lena Younger expresses this concern when Walter proposes his idea to open a liquor store to help his family, by first investing with the money that comes from the insurance check. Lena immediately discredits the idea, using arguments saying that Walter’s priority isn’t family. One can recall that Lena’s late husband was described as a hard worker, with family at the center of everything he did. Not only that, but Lena, being older and living differently than she is now, has grown up with different sets of hardships and therefore values. Both contribute to her ideals revolving around being there for family, of which don’t include a get-rich-quick-scheme. This is seen when Lena reveals that she put a down payment for a house, and giving her reasoning behind it. Lena wants to get a newer house, that allows them to live comfortably, and the amenities that contribute to this are a bedroom for Travis and a garden for herself. The garden refers back to the little plant Lena has in the kitchen. Like her plant, it is small and worn, but is representative of the hope within her. The plant would then transform into a garden, demonstrating that Lena has bounties of hope and is flourishing with the opportunity to grow her security for her family and herself. Another important thing to note is that Lena never imposes her children with ideas about the world. Although at times she tries to wane them off certain ideas, these ideas pertaining to her hardships and religious beliefs, she generally is very accepting of what her children do. She lets them have their own dreams and goals, seen when she tells Walter what she wants him to do with the check, which shows the importance of family to her in another

Many women find that their mothers have the greatest influence on their lives and the way their strengths and weaknesses come together. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, the lives of four Chinese mothers and their Chinese-American daughters are followed through vignettes about their upbringings and interactions. One of the mothers, An-Mei Hsu, grows up away from her mother who has become the 4th wife of a rich man; An-Mei is forced to live with her grandmother once her mother is banned from the house, but eventually reunites and goes to live in the man’s house with her mother. Her daughter, Rose, has married an American man, Ted, but their marriage begins to end as he files for divorce; Rose becomes depressed and unsure what to do, despite

After Ying-Ying narrates her life story, which was filled with mostly pain and sorrow, she states, “I will gather together my past and look. I will see a thing that has already happened. The pain that cut my spirit loose. I will hold that pain in my hand until it becomes hard and shiny, more clear” (252). Ying-Ying wishes to “gather together my past and look,” indicating that she will not look down upon and regret her “past” but only “look” back and reflect on her past. Ying-Ying understands that these events caused “pain” which “cut my spirit loose”; She is referring to her strong and fierce spirit which makes her feel as if she is living again. She wishes to “hold” the “pain,” rather than toss it away and ignore it. She wants to study this pain as it turns “hard, and shiny, more clear,” meaning that she wants to study it until it becomes understandable. Ying-Ying also states, “I will use this sharp pain to penetrate my daughter’s tough skin and cut her spirit loose. She will fight me, because this is the nature of two tigers” (252). Ying-Ying plans to take advantage of “the sharp pain” which she experienced throughout her lifetime to metaphorically “cut” Lena’s “tiger spirit loose,” which is also known as a strong, fierce, and fighter spirit. Her “tough skin” will be hard to “penetrate” because she is resistant and headstrong, but this only motivates Ying-Ying because

Lena Younger, the head of the family, and the mother of both Walter Lee and Beneatha encounters many struggles while attempting to achieve her American Dream of living an improved lifestyle with her family. Lena wants to own a house with a garden. She says; “I always wanted me a garden like I used to see sometimes at the back of the houses down home.” (I.i.53) The Younger family lives in an apartment where Lena is unable to have a garden of her own since she does not have a front or back yard. The Younger family is in financial turmoil, and they cannot afford to invest in a house. While talking to Travis, Lena says; "you know that money we got in the mail this morning...Well—what you think your grandmamma gone and done with that money...she went out and

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

    The commonly known phrase “like mother, like daughter” holds very true with all the pairs of mothers and daughters in The Joy Luck Club.  Rose posses important characteristics that were passed on by her mother, An-mei.  Uniquely with this couple, the trait can also be traced back to An-mei’s mother.  All three of these women have difficulty

In the poem the mother is talking to her son in the film the mother named Lena Younger speak to her son behar husband and herself for today annandale to provide this might scare the future is reflected in the palm through the word. Lena represents the mother in the poem as she is one of the people that has slaved her life over working to provide for her kids. The conflict seen in the poem is represented by Lena having issues with the actions of her son and daughter. Walter is trying to pen a liquor store a practice that she sees as dishonest and when her daughter-in-law mentions that she is planning to have an abortion she expects Walter to decline, but surprisingly he says nothing and walks away causing her to voice her disappointment. She also has issues with her daughter

Lena enjoys dancing and kissing but is merely having fun. When Frances Harling teases Lena about a suitor who the town thinks Lena will marry, she responds, "I don't want to marry Nick, or any other man,' Lena murmured. 'I've seen a good deal of married life, and I don't care for it. I want to be so I can help my mother and the children at home, and not have to ask lief of anybody." (Cather 105). It seems impossible for the town to believe that a beautiful girl would consider working, but Lena goes against the conformity and shows that women can live self sufficiency.

All of the woman who migrated from China all have a curtain pride for their own mothers and cultures cultures respectively. Major acts of pride go into what these woman do while raising their daughters, as they want to push their daughters for success. “What will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything. . . .” The aunties are looking at me as if I had become crazy right before their eyes. . . . And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant. . . . They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese . . . who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation.” The other mothers are flabbergasted that June does not know that much about her mother. The mothers also have their own pride in their daughters, and all the daughters have been together, so this phrase from June scares the other mothers of what their own daughters might think about them. In Chinese tradition, respecting your mother is very important, due to June being raised in America, she does not realise what she has just proclaimed as bad until the other mothers react to it.

Characterization is a widely-used literary tool in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. Specifically, each mother and daughter is a round character that undergoes change throughout the novel. Characterization is important in the novel because it directly supports the central theme of the mother-daughter relationship, which was relevant in Tan’s life. Tan grew up with an immigrant mother, and Tan expresses the difficulties in communication and culture in the stories in her book. All mothers in the book are immigrants to America, and all daughters grew up living the American lifestyle, creating conflict between the mothers and daughters due to miscommunication. Characterization of the mothers and daughters in Amy Tan’s The Joy Club creates and

In vignette number three, the Rice Husband, the story is viewed through the daughter’s point of view, Lena. Lena had married a man named Harold. However, she was unhappy in her marriage since they had split their money down the middle to make sure everything was fair. They always had to pay back what was owed to each other. Since Lena and Harold had a poor relationship she was afraid of her mother finding out about their dilapidated relationship when she had come for a visit. After, Lena had shown her mother the house she had thought to herself, “all she sees are the bad parts… everything she’s said is true… She knows what’s going to happen to us. Because I remember something else she saw when I was eight years old “(Tan 151). Lena had remembered the time when her mother would threaten her to eat her rice or she would end up marrying a bad

The Joy Luck Club finishes with the story of Lena. Lena is the American born daughter of immigrant Ying-ying, and she is married to Harold. Unlike Lindo, her marriage was not arranged; however, her marriage fits the recurring theme of toxicity within relationships of opposing sexes. Similar

The relationship a mother has with her daughter is one of the most significant relationships either person will possess. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, the stories of four mothers and their respective daughters are established through vignettes, which reveal the relationships between them. Throughout the novel, the mothers and daughters are revealed to be similar, yet different. Lindo and Waverly Jong can be compared and contrasted through their upbringings, marriages, and personalities.

Lena is a Norwegian immigrant with a flirtatious beauty. She lives in an unsuccessful farm and the oldest among her siblings. Instead of doing what her father wants her to do, Antonia works as Mrs. Thomas' assistant, a dressmaker in a town of Black Hawk. Lena's father, “Chris Lingard was not a very successful farmer, and he had a large family... the Norwegian women, who disapproved of her, admitted that she was a good daughter...”

    Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club is a novel that deals with many controversial issues. These issues unfold in her stories about four Chinese mothers and their American raised daughters. The novel begins with the mothers talking about their own childhood’s and the relationship that they had with their mothers. Then it focuses on the daughters and how they were raised, then to the daughters current lives, and finally back to the mothers who finish their stories. Tan uses these mother-daughter relationships to describe conflicts of history, culture, and identity and how each of these themes are intertwined with one another through the mothers and