Comparing Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mom And The Joy Luck Club

Relationships between a daughter and her mother can often be strained because the two sides often want different things from each other. In the two novels, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom and The Joy Luck Club, the authors use different tones to express the contrasting relationships they have with their daughter and mother. In Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom, Amy Chua uses diction to create a frustrated and annoyed, yet conversational tone between her and her daughter that shows their loving relationship, whereas Amy Tan uses her word choices to create an intense, resentful tone in the novel, The Joy Luck Club, that shows her and her mother's toxic relationship. In an excerpt from Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom, “The Violin”, Chua uses a tone that

One way she does this is by the words she uses to describe her mother when she writes, “She was frighteningly strong….Her chest was heaving even more and her mouth was open, smiling crazily as if she were pleased that I was crying” (Tan 141). The word “frighteningly” and “crazily” makes it seem as if Tan views her mother as almost a monster, which immediately tells the reader that their relationship is belligerent. It also creates a dark, frightening tone. Tan also uses this tone when she writes,” I was sobbing by now, looking at her bitterly” (Tan 141-142). The word “sobbing” shows how deeply upset Tan was, and “bitterly” shows that Tan and her mother had a deeply damaged relationship with years of pain behind it. Lastly, she describes how she “wanted to see it [her mother’s anger] spill over, and to do so she yells, “Then I wish I’d never been born! I shouted. “I wish I were dead! Like them” (Tan 141-142). By writing this Tan shows how she wanted to hurt her mother, which is evidence that the relationship between her and her mother has deep problems. The mother obviously does not care what her daughter wants or how she is feeling, and the daughter does not care about her mother’s feelings.This is most likely the result of years of her mother treating her unfairly. Overall, all of