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Foreshadowing In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

1168 Words5 Pages

Aidan Hayes

Mrs. Martinez

Sophomore Honors English

25th January 2023

The Use of Literary Devices to Convey Amy Tan’s ideas in The Joy Luck Club

Literary devices, sometimes dubbed the "building blocks of literature," aren’t uncommon to find in any text, including The Joy Luck Club by author Amy Tam. The Joy Luck Club is a novel that documents the lives of four Chinese immigrant women and their daughters living in San Francisco, while also touching on the mothers’ previous experiences in China. These women gather at a location aptly named "The Joy Luck Club," where they compete for money and food by playing the game Mahjong. The book dives deep into conflicts involving generational and cultural trauma, the downfalls of being …show more content…

Foreshadowing, “a narrative device in which suggestions or warnings about events to come are dropped or planted,” is how you would define this phenomenon in literature. Amy Tam utilizes foreshadowing in The Joy Luck Club, typically in conjunction with other literary devices, like motifs; hidden meanings that can allow readers to find recognizable patterns throughout the book. Patterns are one of the many different ways that foreshadowing can be presented, recurringly similar situations typically have a relatively predicable outcome; comparable to ‘History Repeats Itself.’ A memorable example of foreshadowing in the book was in Rose Hsu’s chapter; Bing and his brothers are spending time on the beach with their grandmother An-Mei and mom Rose. Bings’ brothers’ shoo Bing away from their sandcastles, stating he’ll just wreck it. Rose says he “wandered down the beach, walking stiffly like an ousted emperor... I trailed behind, imagining tidal waves and wondering what I would do if one appeared.” (Pg. 66 An) Rose momentarily looses focus on Bing, and when she looks back over, he is gone. This particular case of foreshadowing in the book built suspense; he was described as being ‘ousted,’ and Rose already has suspicions about Bing potentially being caught in a tidal wave. Amy Tam gave her readers this lens to look through; that of rising anxiety about Bing being swept away by the ocean. She gives the reader context, something to look for and focus on. This allows the reader to better understand Amy Tams’ thinking and emotional

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