Jing-Mei Woo from The Joy Luck Club, written by Amy Tan, goes through the everyday challenges that a woman foreigner goes through, as well as various moments of misunderstanding and misconception. In the novel, she learns how to deal with the challenges and face the obstacles that are thrown at her before, during, and after her mother’s death. Tan shows the struggles of everyday life between the daughters and the mothers due to the language barrier that keeps them apart. Tan was born and raised in San Francisco, California. Tan’s family and a few friends made up a club called the joy luck club in order to test their luck, and they did that by playing the stock market. In the book The Joy Luck Club, it is shown throughout how language can create …show more content…
Tan uses characterization to show the reader the differences between the daughters and the mothers. An example that reflects this is when Jing-Mei thinks about she and her mothers relationships while talking to Auntie Lin and the rest of the joy luck club, “These kinds of explanations made me feel my mother and I spoke two different languages, which we did. I talked to her her in English, and she answered back in Chinese.” (Tan, 23). Jing-Mei speaks in a sense as if both she and her mother didn’t quite understand each other. The daughters do not speak fluent Chinese, and the mothers do not speak fluent English; and due to this complication, a language barrier is created. The women of The Joy Luck Club, ”Especially …show more content…
Tan uses and slightly manipulates the emotions of the daughters and mothers. For example, this is seen when Jing-Mei is listening to Auntie Lin talking at the joy luck club, while thinking, “But listening to Auntie Lin tonight reminds me once again: My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other’s meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more.” (Tan, 27). The language barrier causes Jing-Mei to not understand her mother's true meanings and intentions, while her mother understands everything she says but cannot communicate with her in a way that she would understand. Translations are never accurate, and so the mother and the daughter know how to word their intentions properly so it can be interpreted. Another example of the emotional distress going on between the daughters and the mothers is when Suyuan’s daughter Jing-Mei goes to see her half sisters in China. This represents the biggest battle of culturally different countries. June (Jing-Mei) sees this constant battle that her mother has gone through, and is upset that Suyuan died before ever seeing her twins. “Jing-mei Woo … becomes the frame narrator linking the two generations of American Chinese, who are separated by age and cultural gaps and yet bound together by family ties and a continuity of ethnic heritage.” (Xu, 108).
Jing-mei and her father travel to her mother’s homeland to comprehend what her mother endured “She must not only hear her mother's words, and later, her father's, but also she must see the landscape that those words, or mini poems, interpret in order for her to discover her own individual place” (Wood 13). Once Jing-mei was with her sisters, her character grew or the better. In the end, Jing-mei finally understood and knew how Suyuan was in her
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.
When Jing-mei is young she ignore her mother’s hopes, but as she grows up she finds herself by understanding those hopes of her mother; as for Junior he finds himself by searching the white-part within himself, however, both of them go on the journey not only physical, but also spiritual to find who they are and Jing-mei finds her Chinese part on the journey. By looking inside herself and
The author uses Jing-mei and her mother to reflect the differences of personality within each
It is hard for a mother and daughter to have a healthy relationship when the mother is viewed as an evil figure by the child. It is normal for the mother and daughter to have their small cat fights because that is what makes the relationship healthy. It shows that the mother cares enough to have these feuds with her daughter. Sometimes though the mother goes too far and tries to make their daughter something they are not, and that is not a healthy relationship. These mother and daughter relationships, along with their tone, can be observed in the memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom by Amy Chua and the novel The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan.
She then uses these “new thoughts” and ideas to state that she “won’t let her [mother] change” her into the person she seeks her daughter to be. When Jing-Mei experiences a realization that she is her own person and not simply another part of her mother, she can embrace the comfort of knowing that she will not change for anyone, and is simply extraordinary for having her own thoughts and feelings. This reflects how Amy Tan can understand her thoughts and feelings about the hardships in her relationship with her mother as a way to connect more closely to her characters and make them more realistic in her writing (“How Amy Tan’s family stories made her a
Throughout the novel, Jing Mei explains her rocky relationship and lack of affection with her high demanding Chinese mother. She was ashamed and embarrassed of her heritage, and the "funny Chinese dresses with stiff stand-up collars and blooming branches of embroidered silk sewn over their breasts. " She believed that the Joy Luck Club was a "shameful Chinese custom, like the secret gathering of the Ku Klux Klan or the tom-tom dances of TV Indians preparing for war." In addition, she constantly compared herself to Waverly, without recognizing her own talent.
(Tan 24). through this it can be said that Jing-Mei’s mother has a very different culture compared to
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
As seen by the mothers’ and daughters’ behavior towards each other in The Joy Luck Club, it is difficult to preserve one’s culture when one is exposed to a new environment or country. With a difference of two distinct generations between them, the four main pairs often come across cultural collisions. Other than facing the age gap, these mothers and daughters also have to deal with a language and communication barrier. Already, at the beginning of the story, Jing-Mei Woo is able to understand how the mothers of the “Joy Luck Club” are displeased with their daughter’s rejection of their Chinese culture. She speaks to herself, admitting that “they are frightened.
How Much is Worth Sacrificing for “Love”? Everyone regardless of difference in age, nationality or sex, is entitled to pursue individual wishes. This means no one should have the right to oppress another, even if they are bound by love. The Joy Luck Club, written by Amy Tan, tells the story of the relationships and personal accounts between four Chinese mothers and their American-raised daughters. Despite the clear cultural barrier dividing these mothers and their daughters, one issue is apparent in both societies.
People may think that movies aren't as different as their book counterpart. While that may be true, there are many aspects between the book and the movie that aren't as similar. The book The Joy Luck Club written by Amy Tan share many similarities and differences with the movie by the same name. The book and the movie possess similar qualities; nevertheless there are many parts where the movie diverged from the book. However, although there are many differences, both movie and book place an emphasis on the same themes.
At her first glance at them, she knew exactly who they were because of their resemblance to their mother. However, as she approached them, she realized that there were no evident similarities in features between them and her mother, but that the similarities she noticed at first ran deep in their blood: they were family. And at this brief moment of realization, the most perceptible change in Jing-Mei took place. She said, “Now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious.
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.
“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.