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The Joy Luck Club Heroism Analysis

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Suyuan’s Heroism

The Joy Luck Club written by Amy Tan affects the relationship of four mothers and their daughters. Throughout their journeys of figuring out one another, they each learned a new quality about themselves. “The Hero’s Adventure,” written by Joseph Campbell, demonstrates how a person goes through a cycle to be claimed as a hero for another person who needs saving. Tan’s novel describes how each of the heroes went through all four phases of the hero's journey. One of the characters, Suyuan Woo, went through Campbell’s monomyth. Departure; where she loses her twin babies in China. Trials; when she has to overcome the massive obstacle of finding her daughters. Fulfillment; when Jing- mei finds her twin sisters and how Suyuan …show more content…

Before her death, Suyuan had told the other mothers in The Joy Luck Club about what had happened to her when she was in China so that later on Jing-mei would hear the story and would want to fulfill her mother’s wish. Comparing to this text that Campbell wrote, “There are two types of deeds. One is the physical deed, in which the hero performs a courageous act in battle or saves a life. The other kind is the spiritual deed, in which the hero learns to experience the supernormal range of human spiritual life and then comes back with a message” (1). Suyuan not only died trying to find her daughters but as well as being with Jing-mei and the twins spiritually when they reconnected in China. She then resurrected spiritually and at last found peace on account of Jing-mei’s ability to take her place when she found her sisters, such as: “Mama, mama, we all murmur, as if she is among us,” (Tan, 287). Proving that Jing-mei had given Suyuan the long-cherished wish she desired in order for her to finally leave in peace. Suyuan, having a spiritual deed connects to what Campbell had written about the two deeds a hero would have. After she found peace, she returned spiritually to the place where her whole hero’s journey

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In the words of Jing-Mei in the last line of the story, “Together we look like our mother. Her same eyes, her same mouth, open in surprise to see, at last, her long-cherished wish” (Tan 159). Throughout her life, Suyuan, their mother, held onto the hope that she would see her daughters again. In this hope, she named Jing-Mei in connection to her sisters, keeping the “long-cherished wish” that someday her daughters would reconcile and complete their family circle. The occasion that

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