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Joy Luck Club Literary Analysis

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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.
Throughout the book Jing-mei does not understand her mother’s intentions. This leads to animosity. For example, when Suyuan wants Jing-mei to be a …show more content…

Particularly when Jing-mei asks Suyuan what the difference is between Jewish and Chinese Mahjong. Suyuan answers, half in English and half in Chinese. Jing-mei is used to this way of explaining, but is still troubled by it, “These kind of explanations made me feel my mother and I spoke two different languages, which we did. I talked to her in English, she answered back in Chinese” (33-34). Jing-mei and Suyuan do not have the finest insight of each other because neither is willing to meet in the middle. They prefer to speak their own language. Jing-mei comprehends Chinese and Suyuan understands English, but neither will speak the other’s language. They are letting pride block how they truly wish to represent themselves. Jing-mei believes that she does not hear all that her mother wants her to while her mother reads more into what Jing-mei is trying to say. This is due to a separation in culture. Speaking two different languages lends to a loss in translation. Amy Tan displays throughout Joy Luck Club that pridefulness, indignation, and lack of understanding can keep people from being able to communicate. She demonstrates this through characterization of Jing-mei and Suyuan in the text. This causes Jing-mei to pay the price of still wanting to have more knowledge of what her mother thinks and intends after her

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Suyuan’s Heroism The Joy Luck Club written by Amy Tan affects the relationship of four mothers and their daughters. Throughout their journeys of figuring out one another, they each learned a new quality about themselves. “The Hero’s Adventure,” written by Joseph Campbell, demonstrates how a person goes through a cycle to be claimed as a hero for another person who needs saving. Tan’s novel describes how each of the heroes went through all four phases of the hero's journey.

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Her intentions are not meant for heartbreaks, but for the well-being of her babies. Support Point # 2- Suyuan’s top priority is to educate Jing-mei as ideal daughter; however, high expectations are difficult to achieve causing problems and leading bitterness into the relationship. Support Point

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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.

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This disagreement quickly became a source of resentment and anger for both of them, but Jing-Mei and her mother were unable to resolve this conflict because of their different backgrounds and experiences. The story showcases how relationships between mothers and daughters can be strained because of differences in culture and a lack of communication. One of the difficulties between Jing-Mei and her mother is their different cultural backgrounds, which is supported by two points from the story. Firstly, Jing-Mei and her mother both disagreed on the opportunities that existed in America. According to Singer, Amy Tan uses “two entirely

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“After losing everything in China…She never looked back with regret. ”(Chunk 1 ¶3). Jing-Mei’s mother is a Chinese immigrant with the typical ‘everything is better in America’ mindset. Jing-Mei, being raised in America, had more of an American mindset. “You want me to be someone i’m not…I’ll never be the daughter you want me to be!”

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The result of this is that they have different experiences, which have shaped their current points of view. One example of an experience that shaped Jing-Mei’s point of view is shown in the story. The text states,” So it was a surprise to me when I hit the first wrong note and I realized something didn’t sound quite right. And then I hit another and another followed that.

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Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club is an amazing representation of what Chinese immigrants and their families face. The broad spectrum of the mothers’ and daughters’ stories all connect back to a couple of constantly recurring patterns. These patterns are used to show that how the mothers and daughters were so differently raised affected their relationships with each other, for better and for worse. To begin with, the ever-present pattern of disconnect between the two groups of women is used to show how drastically differently they were raised.

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Throughout the story, Jing-mei’s feeling toward her mother change in critical ways. As a young child, Jing-mei wants constant attention from her mother, going so far as agreeing to become a child prodigy. In the story, Jing-mei commented, “In fact, in the beginning, I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so” (Tan 221). This was before her mother becomes highly adamant about wanting her child to become a prodigy. As time went on, she wanted Jing-mei to become the epitome of a child star.

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“Divergent perceptions and absence of a common language of communication ... they fail to fathom each other’s feelings and likes and dislikes” (Priya). Miscommunication between people creates rifts and lays pretense for tension and dispassion. Without communication, people become impatient and disassociate. “They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English”(Tan 31).

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In The Joy Luck Club, written by Amy Tan, we are introduced to Suyuan and her daughter Jing-Mei “June” Woo. As with any relationship, there is conflict between Suyuan Woo and her daughter, as it seems that Jing-Mei doesn’t understand her mother’s Chinese culture and ambitions. In the Chinese culture, women are seen as inferior and often lack basic rights such as the right to marriage or financial holdings, thus deprived of their potential. This is why the rights in the U.S. are seen as privileges to Chinese women, among other minorities, and why Suyuan endeavored for her daughter to become a prodigy and excel in anything and everything. Yet as Jing-Mei was forced into this ideal, and the more her mother tried to enforce this idea, the further she begun to despise her mother for attempting to turn her into a “fraud”.

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Jing Mei, while portrayed as an obedient child, is only willing to listen to her mother to a certain extent. Throughout the story, it is consistently hinted that Jing Mei would eventually explode against her mother as an attempt to free herself from her mother’s chains. In addition, after the fiasco at the piano recital, she eventually derives further from her mother’s wishes as she “didn 't get straight A...didn 't become class president...didn 't get into Stanford...dropped out of college.” (54). On the flip side, Jing Mei’s mother is a stereotypical Chinese parent who is fully determined to ensure her daughter’s success in a new environment.

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In the words of Jing-Mei in the last line of the story, “Together we look like our mother. Her same eyes, her same mouth, open in surprise to see, at last, her long-cherished wish” (Tan 159). Throughout her life, Suyuan, their mother, held onto the hope that she would see her daughters again. In this hope, she named Jing-Mei in connection to her sisters, keeping the “long-cherished wish” that someday her daughters would reconcile and complete their family circle. The occasion that

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on the other hand Jing-Mei is America born and has more of an American culture mind set, which cause her to seem rebellious to her mother. Said by Jing-Mei’s Mother, “only two kinds of daughters!” she shouted in Chinese “those who are obedient and those who follow their mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient Daughter!”

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