What Are The Similarities Between The Joy Luck Club And 1984

Peter Charles
Professor Barbara Berger
English 101-D17
Writing Sample: Final 1984 vs. JLC
This essay focuses on the parallels between the novel The Joy Luck Club and 1984. On the surface, they might appear to be different, but when you delve closer, you discover that both societies were constantly at war and had strict moral codes that, when broken, were punished severely. This will be an assessment of what the books have to say about the repressive circumstances under which people lived at the time due to the ruling elite.
In 1984, the major objective of the party is to maintain power forever. Power is a dangerous thing that is incredibly intoxicating once a person or group of people have a taste for it, they will never want to give it up.

Women were valued according to their ability to have sons, and in the instance of Lindo, she was married off at an early age to Tyan-yu, the son of Huang Taitai. "I was promised to the Huangs’ son for marriage, my own family began treating as if I belonged to somebody else." (Tan 51). When Lindo realized that her destiny had already been predetermined by this scheduled marriage, she became distressed. China is also a superstitious country and the people of China held very rigidly to their superstitions. Prior to the Chinese New Year, according to Chinese superstition, all obligations must be paid in full. They also held the view that a deceased person's ghost will emerge three days later to settle any unfinished business. Three days before the Chinese New Year, An-Mei's mother committed suicide so that her daughter would be in the greatest possible position in Wu-Tsing's household by taking advantage of superstitions. “So on that day, Wu Tsing, fearful of my mother’s vengeful spirit, wore the coarsest of white cotton mourning clothes. He promised her visiting ghost thar he would raise Syaudi and me as his honored children.” (TAN

"They can't get inside you," she had said. But they could get inside you. "What happens to you here is forever," O'Brien had said. That was a true word. There were things, your own acts, from which you could never recover. Something was killed in your breast; burnt out, cauterized out. (Orwell 290). Winston was released from the Ministry of Love after being tortured into joining the Party. Alcoholic. At the Chestnut Tree Cafe, he recalls Julia's "they can't get inside you" advice. As Winston knows, his suffering at the Ministry of Love disproves this. Room 101 is scary because a person betrays all they care about and loses their identity when they face their darkest fear. Winston thinks he'll never forgive Julia. Never again can he challenge the Party. Julia also succumbed to the treatment at the Ministry of love. "Sometimes," she said, "they threaten you with something—something you can't stand up to, can't even think about. And then you say, ‘Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to so-and-so.' And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn’t true. (Orwell 292) Julia