Similarities And Differences In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

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.
The book and the movie possess similar qualities. First, in both the movie and the book, all the mothers left their old lives in China for a new one in America. ”My mother could sense that the woman of these families also had

One example would be the way Ying Ying St. Clair's baby died. “I took this baby from my womb before it could be born. This was not a bad thing in China back then, to kill a baby before it is born. But even then, I thought it was bad, because my body flowed with terrible revenge as the juices of this man’s firstborn son poured out of me.” (281). In the book, she aborted her unborn son as revenge to her husband who left her for another woman. On the contrary, in the movie she unconsciously kills her own son by drowning him in the bath tub. In the book, she killed her unborn son out of hatred for her husband. Although the scene in the movie tries to illustrate her hatred, it conveys that the baby was killed out of carelessness instead of hatred. The movie doesn’t uncover Ying Ying’s feelings accurately. Another difference would be the way the short stories were ordered. In the book, the stories were told in no perceptible order, making it hard to remember who is whose daughter/mother etc. The movie begins with a party which all the characters attend, and the stories are disclosed as the character is thinking about it. The mother and daughter’s stories are staged after one another. The movie allows for a more natural way of telling the story, and makes it easier to remember the characters and associate mothers with daughters. The final difference explored in this essay is the ending, in other words Jing-Mei’s trip to China. In the book, Jing-Mei travels to China in a plane with her father. The twins already know that their mother is dead, as Aunt Lindo included that detail in the letter. They meet the twins together, having both her father and her finish her mother’s dream together. In the movie, Jing-Mei travels to China alone. Aunt Lindo signs the letter as her mother, making the twins believe that their mother is still alive. Jing-Mei arrives on a boat, and meets