The Joy Luck Club Cultural Analysis

Imaging living with someone who has totally different language background and raising environment? In The Joy Luck Club, the author Amy Tan uses first point of view to explore the lives of four Chinese immigrant mothers and their four Chinese-American daughters. In the book, four traditional Chinese mothers move to the USA due to different reasons and form a Joy Luck Club, and each person represents one corner of the mahjong table. Thus, the inclusive is depicted by Amy Tan in the novel in form of the conflict, cultural difference, as well as the symbol; ultimately, it helps to show that the multicultural bond families are stronger than the inclusive families.

First of all, conflicts, mainly between mothers and daughters which provoke absence

My mother and father would adore me. I would be beyond reproach. I would never feel they need to sulk for anything.” (Amy 143) This illustrates that Suyuan instills the concept of anyone can be anything if they work hard into Jing-mei, pushes her to success in different areas; however, after Jing-mei fails those prizes and contests, she feels inadequate because she thinks she never succeeded and never meet her mother’s expectation. Anger and misunderstanding grows in Jing-mei’s heart, she complains why her mom so obsessed with asking her to become a genius, whereas, Suyuan never intends Jing-mei become a genius but have a better life. Confusion also exists between mothers and daughters in the novel, primarily shown between Waverly and Lindo. As a child, Lindo teaches Waverly the “art of invisible strength,” Waverly thinks that means stay quiet and act innocent which leaves her competitor a laxly attitude. After Waverly become a prodigy in chess, as she wins more chess champions, and chess tournaments, her mom- Lindo bragging to people, and Waverly thinks her mom has no right to show off her “reputations”, she starts acting against her mom in order to show her anger, while Lindo on the other hand believes Waverly is just showing she is unsatisfied with her

The swan feather appears at the first part of story that an old lady left a swa feather to her daughter. Suyuan affirms, “This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions.” (I Prologue.4) The swan feather represents all the best wishes and hope for her daughter have a good future. This results in the high expectation of Suyuan to her daughter, and also foreshadows the sadness of mothers when they feel their hope will end at the next generation. Moreover, Suyuan gives the green jade pendant as a gift to Jing-mei once Jing-mei has inferiority feeling. Jing-mei meets another guy wearing a similar jade pendant with hers, he states “[my mom] gave it to me after I got divorced. I guess my mother [is] telling me I [am] still worth something.’ (-----) This indicates that the green pendant symbolizes Jing-mei’s self-value, shows that Suyuan wants her daughter to know just like the jade has a light colour now, Jing-mei is young and have a sense of inferiority, but if she wear the jade everyday, it will become green which refers to Jing mei that if she work hard and recognize her own value, she will improve with time as well. Lastly, a Chinese book called Twenty-Six Malignant Gate narrates a story that a mother tells her daughter do not ride bike around the corner "The daughter