Irony Irony is extremely prevalent at the beginning of this book, when the Japanese occupation of China is being illustrated. Irony is also present in the interactions between mothers and daughters because of misunderstandings. Mothers use insults because of love, give seemingly hypocritical advice, et cetera. She uses irony to show the extreme conditions Suyuan was living in, “people in the city were starving, eat rats and later, the garbage that the poorest rats used to feed on (24).” It’s ironic that people, usually thought as clean and respectable, are eating garbage that most rats, thought as dirty and pathetic, wouldn’t eat. “...to think a thousand-yuan note wasn’t even good enough to rub our bottoms.” It’s also ironic that currency, usually seen as valuable, is used to clean waste. These two quotes point out how awful these people’s conditions were by using irony. An ironic moment later in the book is when Lindo learns that Waverly is going to China for her honeymoon. This is ironic because Waverly had been rebelling against her Chinese heritage and now she’s gushing about travelling there and bragging about being Chinese just because it’s become fashionable.
Symbols The Joy Luck Club is a symbol of the mothers’ friendships and their new lives in America. The East seat represents, “where things begin, my
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Lindo talks about how strange it is that she notices certain things when “it seems life is about to end (58).” Ying-Ying also says some crazy things right after her newborn son dies. The fact that good people aren’t always lucky is really prevalent in Lindo’s story as well. She belonged to a good family, but a flood still came and washed their home away. Rose’s family didn’t do anything wrong, but their youngest son still drowned. Suyuan was a good person, but she was still forced to abandon her babies in China. Bad things happen to good