ipl-logo

Postcolonial Lens In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

504 Words3 Pages

Devlin Nguyen
Period 4
English 3
Postcolonialism Analysis
Joy Luck Club through Postcolonial Lens Amy Tan’s book The Joy Luck Club describes stories that show the complexities of mother-daughter relationships that live in different cultures in their childhood. Lindo Jong, one of the mothers in the novel, immigrates to America to start a new life and struggles to understand and connect with her daughter, Waverly, who lived in America her whole life. In the novel, Waverly and Lindo experiences unhomeliness due to the difference in culture and lifestyle, causing a delay in understanding between Lindo and Waverly. One way Tan showed Waverly's unhomeliness is her lack of knowledge about China and her mother’s background. Right After Waverly told Lindo that she s going to get married to Rich, Lindo started to talk about their family's past. Waverly shows her ignorance about Lindo and her background. When Lindo writes down characters about the Sun clan from Taiyuan, Waverly tells herself “I cannot read Chinese,” (Tan, 202) disclosing the fact that she is not knowledgeable about Chinese culture. This lack of knowledge about Chinese tradition …show more content…

Lindo talks to herself about her own appearance when Waverly tells her that Lindo is two-faced. Lindo gains a moment of epiphany about herself and questions who she really is. She asks herself, “Which one is American? Which one is Chinese? Which one is better?” (Tan, 303), showing that Lindo finally understands that she is somewhat American but also somewhat Chinese. This highlights her feeling of unhomeliness, as she struggles to reconcile her cultural identity and find a sense of belonging in either culture. By questioning who she really is, Lindo's moment of epiphany shows how her feeling of unhomeliness is not just limited to her experiences in America but also extends to her experiences in China and her internal struggle to reconcile her

Show More
Related
486 Words | 2 Pages

Jay’s struggles begin after his cousin in the Philippines, Jun, dies under suspicious circumstances. Jay wants to discover what truly happened to his cousin, but he cannot do that in America, so he travels to the Philippines to get answers. While in the Philippines, Jay is reminded of his shortcomings as an Asian American when his uncle, Tito Maning, points out Jay’s inability to speak Tagalog. Tito Maning tells Jay that if he does not “know [his] mother tongue, [he] cannot know [his] mother. And if [he does] not know [his] mother, [he does] not understand who [he is]” (Ribay 96).

Read More
758 Words | 4 Pages

In The China Coin Leah was strongly rejected her Chinese identity at the beginning when she said “couldn’t the women see? She was not Chinese, not even an ABC-Australian born Chinese” to herself. The use of rhetorical questions demonstrates how Leah disagrees with her identity. Her acceptance of her Chinese background was growing during the exploration in China. After Leah found her mother’s long lost family, she started to accept her Chinese identity,“I am definitely not a Chinese, but I am not not a Chinese”, the high modality of “definitely not”shows her confusion of her self identity, it also illustrates Leah was beginning to accept her Chinese identity as her discovering in China.

Read More
927 Words | 4 Pages

In Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club, many cultural differences exist between the characters, creating complications in their relationships. An example of a cultural difference is between An-mei’s Chinese values and traditions and those of Christianity. The collision of these Chinese and Christian faiths profoundly influences An-Mei's character by causing her to doubt both faiths and resulting in her daughter Rose's inability to control her own choices. An-mei’s exposure to Chinese culture and the Christian faith results in an intermixing of both ideals which eventually leads to a cultural collision. An-mei is exposed to the traditional Chinese values of filial piety, wisdom, deference, and honesty through her grandmother.

Read More
797 Words | 4 Pages

Tan that despite its evident differences to Cofer’s memoir is discussing the same trials ethnic, culturally diverse people experience. On page 881, Cofer recounts her first public poetry reading where an older woman mistook the Puerto Rican author for a waitress that ignites passion to the reading, “her lowered eyes told me that she was embarrassed,” [4] at the sheer power and conviction of Cofer enforcing that she is an educated Latin woman that deserves respect for her identity. While academically Tan’s teachers would always direct her to STEM subjects as viable career options which contradict the author's passion for writing despite not being on-par with the typical standard of what’s expected of a Chinese-American girl. However, what sets both pieces apart is that Tan does this examination through her mother and her own experiences as Chinese-Americans, while Cofer’s memoir encapsulates her own struggles that intertwine with the vast Latin woman’s

Read More
1157 Words | 5 Pages

narrator thinks of herself as American, not so much Japanese was her friend and the United States government does. Her identity is based on what she likes of her experiences, not so much for heritage. Cisneros 's narrator sees herself as very clearly different from her Mexican grandmother. But others charge for others Mexican

Read More
502 Words | 3 Pages

Despite the Mexican Culture she feels a stronger connection to the United States than Mexico. The narrator dislikes her grandmothers traditional ways of her culture. In the end of the story, the boys are greeted by a lady who is English but tries to speak in Spanish to take a picture of them but soon to find out they speak

Read More
933 Words | 4 Pages

Two protagonists of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, Lindo and Waverly Jong live the lives of a usual Chinese mother, and American daughter. They live through struggles, and although both go through journeys, there are key distinctions in which the Jong family does not complete the Hero’s Journey. The Jong family does not complete the Hero’s Journey, primarily due to their lack of sacrifice for the purpose

Read More
1409 Words | 6 Pages

Tan expresses the life experiences of Chinese immigrants to the United States and attempts to depict the relationship of a mother and daughter through her significant piece of writing ‘The Joy Club’. Therefore, all these authors somehow portrayed their early struggles and their view point towards life from their literary

Read More
1028 Words | 5 Pages

As a Chinese-American, growing up in a biased society where she would be judged for both trying to assimilate and for keeping her cultural personality alive made the narrator become caught between two separate identities, which would tangle her in a web of self-hatred and despair -- in other words, being raised in America certainly had a bad influence over her life, her happiness, and her

Read More
1271 Words | 6 Pages

The experiences related and recorded in the novels The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Monkey Bridge by Lan Cao, and Obasan by Joy Kogawa give great insight to the internal and external struggles East-Asian immigrants face in the Western World, specifically Chinese-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans, and Japanese-Canadians. Although the situations have certainly improved since the mid twentieth century, many of the issues and struggles the characters in the novels face are still real and ever-expanding for over five percent of the U.S. population. To

Read More
1060 Words | 5 Pages

In the speech that Amy Tan made called, “Mother Tongue,” she unmasks the years she spent being her mother's interpreter and learning different “Englishes'” to help her. Tan shared the struggle of being an American-born daughter of a Chinese-born mother, which helps the readers realize how similar situations happen all around the world. The bond of that struggle can bring offspring of immigrant parents together to help each other adapt and learn different “Englishes.” Although Amy Tan and her mother did have a few arguments, meaning she quite literally held a knife to her neck, they were able to get past their differences and continue sharing this unbroken

Read More
968 Words | 4 Pages

Their first “friend” in the US betrayed them. Mia’s view of society before this happened was neutral, but after this, Mia lost faith in Mr.Yao. Along with this, she lost the assurance that she would have a stable life. In “Front Desk,” Mr.Yao said, “That's the deal-take it or leave it.”. “Please,” I said to him.

Read More
735 Words | 3 Pages

In 2014, four cases of Ebola broke out in the United states and over 900 in North West Africa. Of these four cases, only one was fatal. In The Hot Zone, Preston describes the three main filoviruses: Marburg, Ebola Sudan, and Ebola Zaire. Marburg, is often referred to as the cousin of Ebola and is not as fatal as the Ebola virus. Of the two different Ebola strains, Ebola Zaire (named after its origin) is known as the most deadly of all the viruses with an eighty percent fatality rate, and is twice as lethal as Ebola Sudan.

Read More
1225 Words | 5 Pages

“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.

Read More
1011 Words | 5 Pages

This presents a development of characterisation when we meet Ling in the first paragraph of the extract. The description of Ling’s wife follows straight after. In the second paragraph , we encounter Wang-Fô whom inspired Ling to have a new perspective of the world as “Ling avait grandi dans une maison d’où la richesse éliminait les hasards.” The passage is written in an omniscient third person narrative. It is predominantly narrative

Read More

More about Postcolonial Lens In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

Related Topics

Open Document