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Gender Roles In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

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As Children become adults, they become more appreciative of their parents. In The Joy Luck Club, the attitudes of four daughters toward their mothers change as the girls mature and come to realize that their mothers aren’t so different after all. All four of the Joy Luck mothers need their daughters to understand them, and what they have gone through for their girls.The daughters, as they grow to be adults, become more appreciative of their mothers. Their attitudes change over time to create an understanding and respect that hadn’t been there before. The mothers try to achieve this highest level of understanding in every way possible but between linguistic barriers and different views on the modern American lifestyle their storytelling can only take them so far. Overall, the mothers appreciate the opportunities that America has to offer for their daughters. What they don’t approve of is the attitude and demeanor that is portrayed by the typical American citizen. They see …show more content…

The daughters were all born in the U.S., while their mothers are Chinese immigrants who barely speak english whatsoever. Due to this, in all four cases, communication barriers exist between the mothers and the daughters’ love interests and overall livelihood, resulting in several strained relationships. The daughters don’t even put forth an effort to comprehend their mothers’ traditional Chinese culture, and it is clear that the mothers often find themselves baffled and confused by their daughters’ mindset and modern American lifestyles. The barriers that exist between the mothers and the daughters are often due to their inability to communicate with one another. The daughters think their mothers are uneducated because of their fractured English, while the mothers are impatient with their daughters who don’t understand the cultural aspects of their chinese

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Kai Foote Martinez Sophomore Honors English 25 January 2023 The Sacrifices That Come with Love in The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan ’s novel The Joy Luck Club is about the hardships of relationships with different cultural beliefs and expectations and how they influence people. There are numerous examples of the hardships and sacrifices that mothers make for their children; these sacrifices teach and influence all the daughters to help them have a better understanding of the world and their expectations.

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In the world today there are a lot of miscommunications between mothers and their daughters. In “ The Joy Luck Club “ Amy Tan the author shows the miscommunications between Suyuan and her daughter Jing Mei. Tan shows the miscommunications by showing different situations throughout the story between Suyuan and Jing Mei. In the Joy Luck Club Tan shows the miscommunication between Jing Mei and suyuan.

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American lawyer and author, Amy Chua in her essay, “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior”, compares and contrast the stereotypical success of Chinese children versus the children of Western. 70% of Western mothers said that “stressing academic success is not good for children”, while roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Chua’s purpose is to the point that Chinese children repay their parents by obeying them and making them proud, but Western parents don’t have the same view of children being permanently indebted to their parents. She adopts a formal tone in order to explain Chinese children’s success, in her intended audience, Chinese parents. Chua achieves her purpose through the use of anecdote and selection of details.

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The prejudice Ying Ying Saint Clair feels for American culture causes her to have a difficult time understanding and communicating with her daughter. Because Ying Ying Saint Clair was raised in China, she views western ways as valuing worthless material items and ignoring critical traditions and values. As she watches her daughter mature and make her

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Alice presents the idea that the relationship between Chinese children and their parents is one quite different from that of Australian children and their parents. ‘These were questions Chinese children never asked their parents.’ (Page 144) She suggests that different etiquette and customs are undertaken and that the bond between them differs. Alice alludes to the idea that these differences in the home are the foundation for the differences Alice perceives socially.

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The mother in “Fish Cheeks” wants her daughter Amy to not wish to be someone she is not. She tells Amy, “You want to be the same as American girls on the outside. But inside you are always Chinese” (Tan, 176). Amy’s mother doesn’t want Amy to have childish desires to be an American girl, and instead embrace her Chinese qualities like an adult. While Amy’s mother encourages adult maturity through pride and self-esteem, Richard’s mother teaches him to grow up with a stern and violent method.

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“I knew it was my mother even though I had not seen her in all my memory”(Tan, 1988, p.44). This quote from The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan shows how An-mei’s mother emotionally distanced herself from her and was not a large part of her life. However, the families such as this one in the stories are defined by blood. That is where this starts, as An-mei picked up a lot of characteristics from her apathetic mother, which is why their relationship is the way it is. Within Amy Tan’s cherished story of the Joy luck club which goes into the life stories of each member of the club, the central theme is family and it focuses specifically on the bond between mothers and daughters.

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Their happiness started to flow in the room until they found out that not all the family member would be allowed to go. Tears rolled down the mother and father’s eyes, and the children as they all had to leave their lovely grandparent behind. That was the happiest day for them as well as the worst day. The parent didn’t want to leave the grandparent behind, but had no choice as they wanted to take a step forward for their kids hoping for a better future and education. For this reason, they believe America will make their kid’s life a better one than they have

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Amy tans’ the joy luck club is picturing the relationship between mothers and their daughters born in America. The relationship is weaken by daughters’ disobedience, lack of communication, and even getting along with their mothers seems challenging. For examples, Waverly asked her mom “Ma, what is Chinese torture” because she couldn’t understand her mom expression of love toward her. This book is about how the mothers and daughters relationship can be weakened by the tragedy and daughters’ disobediences.

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Like the narrator’s father, he notices the family’s cultural identity is slowly dying. His wife, a native Malaysian, is adopting a new identity as a “sales clerk at [Woodworks]” (340) in Canada. In marriage, a couple is supposed to share the responsibility to raise their children and support each other. However, she may have given up on the teaching responsibility from the moment the language “never came easily to [the daughter]” (340). Ultimately, the father is solely responsible handing down his family’s cultural and social roots to his children.

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All any mother could ever want is their child to succeed in life and in academics. The book contains the story of eight characters including mothers, and daughters living their lives according to their beliefs, connecting all stories together the reason being all mothers want their daughters to succeed. In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan uses symbolism to represent the relationship between the mother and daughter characters. Waverly Jong was an extraordinary chess player, she pushed to the best of her ability of course by her

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In Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club, the different stories show how the different characters develop and progress. Rose Hsu Jordan begins “Half and Half” as someone who clearly lacks of conviction as she allows everyone but her to make decisions. Throughout “Without Wood”, however, Rose Hsu Jordan begins to learn, with the help of her mother, how to speak up.

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“Communication is the key to a successful relationship, attentiveness, and consistency. Without it, there is no relationship,” (Bleau). The Joy Luck Club is a novel written by Amy Tan. Set in the twentieth century, this novel depicts the life of four Chinese immigrant women escaping their past and their American-grown daughters. The novel reveals the mothers’ hardship-filled past and motivations alongside with the daughters’ inner conflicts and struggles.

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Amy Tan’s book, The Joy Luck Club, teaches the reader many lessons about family values and trust in one another. The most important lesson is that of the relationship between mothers and daughters. Tan makes important statements about the need daughters have to live up to their mother’s expectations, and their want for love from them. Not only that, she also tries to teach the reader that the connection between a mother and daughter is incredibly strong. An-Mei says to June, “Not know your own mother?

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