In the book “The Joy Luck Club”, by Amy Tan, Jing-Mei Woo is asked to take her mother’s place in the Joy Luck Club. As she settles in she finds more about her mom then she knew when she was alive. She finds out that her mother had two covert twin daughters that she left back in China. As the story develops Jing-Mei is egged to find a way to go meet her sisters and fulfill her mother’s lifelong dream. “The Yellow Raft in Blue Water” by Michael Dorris is about three generations of Indian women Rayona, Christine, and Ida.
The Novel “The Joy Luck Club” written by Amy Tan, is a story about how Chinese women were treated in China, and what lessons they learned about themselves and others. Due to the many cultural difference in China, these mothers have much experience with the way women were treated and have gained much wisdom as they grow older, and as the story goes the elderly mothers help their daughters with problems relating to marriage as they tell their stories and experiences that they went through in China both as a child and adult, so they can help their daughters make better decisions for themselves. ` When the daughters of Lindo Jong and An-Mei were kids, their mothers were best friends and also great competitors, so they had used their children as their chess pieces in their game. An-Mei’s daughter was named Rose, and she was an excellent piano player. Lindo’s daughter was named Waverly, and she was an excellent chess champion.
Mr. Shugart said RAG DOLL!’ I screamed at home” (Chua 47-48). Amy Chua is obviously upset with her daughter, as her tone is annoyed. Her statement is ironic, though, because she’s yelling at her daughter while telling her to loosen up. Lulu, Chua’s daughter, accuses her mother of “thinking,” as if Lulu is agitated by the very presence
Tan’s narrative style involves giving the symbols and allusions in all her novels. She emphasizes the symbols such as food, dreams, orchids, silence, ink, fate and paintings to carry the weightage of the themes in all her novels. In case of The Joy Luck Club, the symbols and allusions are interwoven with food, dreams and Chinese language. Through these devices, Tan explores the layers of palimpsest that is her text, her narrative of the immigrant experience in America, her exploration of the bond between mother and daughter. A crucially important symbol in the novel is the Joy luck Club with its mah-jong table as a center piece that links past and present and codifies place and identity for club members.
Throughout the novel The Joy Luck Club, Jing-Mei Woo struggles with her sense of identity and belonging in a community as she is often embarrassed of her heritage, and prefers to live her life in the shadows. However, at the end of the book, Jin-mei finds peace when she seeks her roots and sisters in China. She finally finds her inner Chinese that she described is “in your blood waiting to be let go” (Tan 306). This shows that although immigrants of the time period often struggled with self identity, deep down they wanted to find acceptance in their
Understanding and knowledge of one another is essential yet frustrating when a barrier exists. In Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club, she portrays the story of four mothers and daughters using their points of view. One mother-daughter pair is Jing-mei and Suyuan Woo. When Suyuan dies, Jing-mei has to try and fill her place in the Joy Luck Club that includes Suyuan’s friends: An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair. Amy Tan uses characterization to point out the character’s pride, lack of understanding, and resentment in order to illuminate the heritage lost between Jing-mei and Suyuan Woo.
Crossing Of The Cultural Divide In the novel, The Joy Luck Club, written by Amy Tan, follows a storyline that explores the relationships between four Chinese-American mothers and their four Chinese-American daughters, navigating the cultural divide between their ancestral roots and their American upbringing. The poem, “Mother’s Day” by Daisy Zamora, describes the struggles and sacrifices of mothers, particularly those living in poverty, as they strive to provide for their children, and maintain hope in the place of hardship. Both The Joy Luck Club and “Mother's Day” use characterization, tone, and diction to illustrate the theme that the insist on cultural identity of instilling cultural values onto their children, can often result in the rejection
In the novel Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, the author’s style is expressed using different components such as flashbacks, word choice, and talking in the perspective of different main characters. All of these components contribute to the author's main style which can be described as serious and emotional. The author includes many flashbacks of the different characters previous lives in the novel. This is seen in the first chapter, explained by Jing-Mei Woo (one of the main characters) when she is thinking about her mother, who used to be the “leader” of the Joy Luck Club, where it states “The week before she died, she called me, full of pride, full of life: ‘Auntie Lin cooked red bean soup for Joy Luck. I’m going to cook black sesame seed soup’.”
Throughout the novel, Amy Tan’s personal connection with the story exemplifies why The Joy Luck Club contributes to Chinese-American culture by providing an example of the struggle of communication between the Chinese immigrants and their American children. An incident that demonstrates this is when Lena attempts to explain her and Harold’s list to her mother (Tan 162). Contrasting each other, the two sets of ideas, Lena’s and her mother’s, conflict about Lena’s marriage situation. Worried that her daughter may make the same mistake as hers, Ying-Ying uses her Chinese ideals and past experiences to alleviate her daughter’s problem. However, Lena, unsure of how to deal with the situation, fails to explain or defend her marriage from her mother’s criticism because of the reason that Lena lacks her mother’s experience and was raised the American way, not the Chinese way.
If not for the perspective of Jing-Mei, the reader would not have known of her anger and frustration with her mother as well as the familial pressure present. In comparison, the narrator in Diaz’s story advises the reader on how to behave depending on the cultural and racial background of the girl they are dating. Diaz’s use of
Throughout the course of Amy's life, she learned more about her mother’s past in China and with this information, she created The Joy Luck Club. This Chinese-American novel tells the story of eight individuals, four Chinese mothers and their American daughters who have approximately two chapters each. The book begins and ends with the Jing-Mei Woo's story who reflects the life of Amy herself. Jing- Mei's mother dies in the book allowing her to discover the past her mom left behind including her three abandoned daughters.
Second-generation immigrant struggle to develop this identity because the temptations of assimilation overpower the need to preserve cultural heritage. They credit the formation of their individuality to their western culture, when in fact, it is through their parents they gain a sense of self. This is portrayed in Amy Tan’s, The Joy Luck Club, a multi-perspective novel that encompasses the use of storytelling to demonstrate the relationships between four immigrant mothers and their American-born daughters. Through Jing-Mei’s perceptive character, the conflict she experiences with her mother’s ideals, and the use of simile and symbolism, Tan suggests that maternal love guides an individual to finding their identity. Jing-Mei is an individual prone to dismiss her oriental heritage to gain acceptance from the surrounding western culture.
Throughout the entire novel, the mothers and daughters face inner struggles, family conflict, and societal collision. The divergence of cultures produces tension and miscommunication, which effectively causes the collision of American morals, beliefs, and priorities with Chinese culture which
This peculiarly specific list showed that as a first-generation American, she was constantly scrutinizing the small actions that her mother demonstrated, and she was embarrassed, although it is not likely anyone else ever noticed. However, as she got older, Jing-Mei realized the fact that she was “becoming Chinese.” She still did not truly understand her mother or the beauty of Chinese culture, but her acceptance was the first step of the long excursion of
(Chang 356). This describes the fact that people pretended so much to respect Zedong and care, but deep down that was just them lying to themselves. Chang’s point of view depicts the theme of identity and self belonging as she dreamed of being a part of the Communist Party, like her mother, but turns out she thrived from the revolution and what she went through and came out on
