Marriage is what we picture as a lovely thing in which a couple is usually bonded by love and mutual support, but in The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan marriage is deemed a problem and a difficulty to the couples. The Joy Luck Club, written by Amy Tan, is about four ladies that are together to play Mah Jong. The ladies tell each other stories about their lives and it shapes the life of the youngest lady, Jin-Mei Woo, who is there because her mother, who was in the club, passed away. Amy Tan develops the theme of marriage in The Joy Luck Club using flashbacks. Marriage in Chinese culture is based on traditions. A matchmaker is brought into the house to bond two toddlers for life. These two kids do not have a choice in whom they are able to marry. …show more content…
Ying Ying St. Clair had a hard marriage, and she had to have an abortion, because her husband divorced her. In “Waiting Between the Trees” Ying Ying talks about her miscarriage, and she says that she, “took this baby from my womb before it could be born. This was not a bad thing to do in China back then, to kill a baby before it was 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 from me” (Tan 248). This is showing how she did not want to kill the baby, but because of divorce, she had to and it shaped her life and her aspect of love. Rose Hsu Jordan tried to avoid her divorce with Ted in order to kept her house. “Ted pulled out the divorce papers and stared at them. His x’s were still there, the blanks were still blank… And the answer, the one that was important above everything else, ran through my body and fell from my lips: ‘You can’t just pull me out of your life and throw me away” (Tan 196). Rose tried to talk to Ted, but she got into a divorce and it changed her view of herself. Divorce is is a big aspect in both marriage and the book, and it develops the plot by shaping the lives of the