Chinese Traditionalism in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

3500 Words7 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Chinese and American culture in two kinds

A bleak, ominous cloud quite often hovers over the hopeful heads of immigrants, and

waits surreptitiously to downpour at the most inopportune moments. Challenges can never be

perfectly avoided for immigrants fervently seeking to find freedom, security, and acceptance in

the lands and cultures of those who are vastly different from themselves. Barriers between

diverse, contrasting cultures can never be completely obliterated, therefore immigrants must

assimilate as successfully as they can into countries in which they have chosen to live and raise

their children. However, the obstructions separating immigrants and their cultures from the

inhabitants of their new residence can also serve a much more deprecating purpose. They often

impede upon immigrants’ relationships with their offspring. The children of immigrants

habitually accept and adopt the ways of their birthplace, leaving their parents exasperated and

bewildered. What immigrants feel to be the most significant aspects of their culture have been

whisked away by a merciless monsoon and distorted or rejected by their children. Thus is the

case with the Chinese mothers in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. Because the immigrant women

in this novel are Asian, as opposed to being English-speaking Europeans, they face great

difficulties in completely acclimating into the American setting. In addition to attempting to

assimilate, the women must also face bitter memories of Chinese society. However bitter these

memories may be, the women utilize their traditional Chinese beliefs in order to try to balance

their new homes and even gain their own freedom. They also attempt to confront some of their

assimilating tribulations by creating talk-stories,...

... middle of paper ...

...Pasadena,

CA: Salem Press, 2010. 48-63. Print.

Foster, M. Marie Booth. “Voice, Mind, Self: Mother-Daughter Relationships in Amy Tan’s The

Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife.” Critical Insights: The Joy Luck Club by

Amy Tan. Ed. Robert C. Evans. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 2010. 173-194. Print.

Hamilton, Patricia L. “Feng Shui, Astrology, and the Five Elements: Traditional Chinese Beliefs

In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.” Critical Insights: The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan.

Ed. Robert C. Evans. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 2010. 196-220. Print.

Hsu, Francis L. K. Americans and Chinese: Passage to Differences. Honolulu: The University

Press of Hawaii, 1981. Print.

Xu, Ben. “Memory and the Ethnic Self: Reading Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.” The Joy Luck

Club by Amy Tan. Ed. Robert C. Evans. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 2010. 93-111. Print.

Show More
Related

  • Chinese Women In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

    1258 Words  | 3 Pages

    Amy Tan 's novel, The Joy Luck Club, explores the relationships and experiences of four Chinese mothers with that of their four Chinese-American daughters. The differences in the upbringing of those women born around the 1920’s in China, and their daughters born in California in the 80’s, is undeniable. The relationships between the two are difficult due to lack of understanding and the considerable amount of barriers that exist between them.

    Read More

  • Characterization in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club

    505 Words  | 2 Pages

    Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club uses much characterization. Each character is portrayed in different yet similar ways. When she was raised, she would do whatever she could to please other people. She even “gave up her life for her parents promise” (49), I the story The Red Candle we get to see how Tan portrays Lindo Jong and how she is brought to life.

    Read More

  • Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

    772 Words  | 2 Pages

    Traditions, heritage and culture are three of the most important aspects of Chinese culture. Passed down from mother to daughter, these traditions are expected to carry on for years to come. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, daughters Waverly, Lena, Rose and June thoughts about their culture are congested by Americanization while on their quests towards self-actualization. Each daughter struggles to find balance between Chinese heritage and American values through marriage and professional careers.

    Read More

  • Movie Essay - The Film Based Upon of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

    712 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Joy Luck Club is an emotional tale about four women who saw life as they had seen it back in China. Because the Chinese were very stereotypic, women were treated as second class citizens and were often abused. Through sad and painful experiences, these four women had tried to raise their daughters to live the American dream by giving them love and support, such things which were not available to them when they were young. These women revealed their individual accounts in narrative form as they relived it in their memories. These flashbacks transport us to the minds of these women and we see the events occur through their eyes. There were many conflicts and misunderstandings between the two generations due to their differences in upbringing and childhood. In the end, however, these conflicts would bring mother and daughter together to form a bond that would last forever.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Women's Suffrage Movement

    967 Words  | 2 Pages

    What does “movement” mean? There are many definitions for the word. In this case, I am referring to a political meaning. Movement is a series of organized activities working toward an objective. There have been many groups in history to start up movements throughout the decades. One that stands out to me the most is the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Women’s movements are led by powerful, courageous women who push to better the lives’ of women or lives’ of others. Most familiar movements are those involved in politics, in efforts to change the roles and status of womanhood in society. Groups of women also attempt to improve lives of others with the help of religious and charitable activities. Either it was a political, religious, or charitable women’s movement, each woman of each group have made an impact on today’s view of women and achieved greater political involvement.

    Read More

  • The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan

    1002 Words  | 3 Pages

    The movie, The Joy Luck Club, focuses around the lives of four Chinese mothers and their Chinese-American daughters. The story takes place a few months after Junes mother, Suyuan has died. The mothers and daughters hold very different principles, where the mothers are still very traditional to their Chinese upbringings the daughters are much more “American.” The movie can be viewed from the Feminist Literary Theory, since the 8 main characters are female. The women’s life stories are told through a series of flashback scenes that deal heavily with female gender roles and the expectations of women. While the mothers and their daughter grew up in vastly different worlds, some of their experiences and circumstances correlate solely due to that fact that they experienced them because they are females.

    Read More

  • Mother Daughter Relationships - The Mother-daughter Relationship in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

    821 Words  | 2 Pages

    The second and third sections are about the daughters' lives, and the vignettes in each section trace their personality growth and development. Through the eyes of the daughters, we can also see the continuation of the mothers' stories, how they learned to cope in America. In these sections, Amy Tan explores the difficulties in growing up as a Chinese-American and the problems assimilating into modern society. The Chinese-American daughters try their best to become "Americanized," at the same time casting off their heritage while their mothers watch on, dismayed. Social pressures to become like everyone else, and not to be different are what motivate the daughters to resent their nationality. This was a greater problem for Chinese-American daughters that grew up in the 50's, when it was not well accepted to be of an "ethnic" background.

    Read More

  • Americanization in The Joy Luck Club

    1951 Words  | 4 Pages

    Ho, Wendy. Swan-Feather Mothers and Coca-Cola Daughters: Teaching Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club. An excerpt from Teaching American Ethnic Literatures/ Nineteen Essays, ed. By John R. Maitino and David R. Peck. 1996. University of New Mexico Press.

    Read More

  • Chinese and American Cultures

    4366 Words  | 9 Pages

    Chinese-Americans authors Amy Tan and Gish Jen have both grappled with the idea of mixed identity in America. For them, a generational problem develops over time, and cultural displacement occurs as family lines expand. While this is not the problem in and of itself, indeed, it is natural for current culture to gain foothold over distant culture, it serves as the backdrop for the disorientation that occurs between generations. In their novels, Tan and Jen pinpoint the cause of this unbalance in the active dismissal of Chinese mothers by their Chinese-American children.

    Read More

  • The Powerful Words of Amy Tan, Maxine Hairston, and Mike Rose

    1313 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tan, author of the Joy Luck Club, was born and raised in San Francisco by her Chinese parents. Tan graduated from high school and pursued her college education at five different universities from 1969 through 1976. Contrary to what her teachers had always tried to push on her, Tan steered away from studies in math and science and earned her B.A. in English and Linguistics. She describes that her educational choices were rebellious in nature. In Tan's essay, she describes the hardships of growing up with a mother who encountered problems with the English language.

    Read More

  • Mother-Daughter Relationships in Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club

    1520 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the Joy Luck Club, the author Amy Tan, focuses on mother-daughter relationships. She examines the lives of four women who emigrated from China, and the lives of four of their American-born daughters. The mothers: Suyuan Woo, An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-Ying St. Clair had all experienced some life-changing horror before coming to America, and this has forever tainted their perspective on how they want their children raised. The four daughters: Waverly, Lena, Rose, and Jing-Mei are all Americans. Even though they absorb some of the traditions of Chinese culture they are raised in America and American ideals and values.  This inability to communicate and the clash between cultures create rifts between mothers and daughters.

    Read More

  • Comparing Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club and Waiting for Mr. Kim

    1577 Words  | 4 Pages

    In The Joy Luck Club, the novel traces the fate of the four mothers-Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair-and their four daughters-June Woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, Waverly Jong, and Lena St. Clair. Through the experiences that these characters go through, they become women. The mothers all fled China in the 1940's and they all retain much of their heritage. Their heritage focuses on what is means to be a female, but more importantly what it means to be an Asian female.

    Read More

  • Mother Daughter Relationships - The Mother-daughter Relationship in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

    1165 Words  | 3 Pages

    In The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, the characters Suyuan and June have a mother-daughter relationship fraught with conflict, but ultimately rooted in deep love and commitment for one another. Because of drastic differences in the environments in which they were raised and in their life experiences, these two women have many opposing ideas and beliefs. This coupled with their lack of communication are responsible for many of the problems they encounter during the course of their relationship. These conflicts are only resolved when June learns about her mother's past and accepts their respective differences. The manner in which their relationship develops and the conflicts June and Suyuan face reveal some of the themes that Amy Tan intends for the readers to learn. These themes concern such topics as finding life's importance, making choices, and understanding ourselves and our families.

    Read More

  • Amy Tan’s A Mother’s Tongue

    979 Words  | 2 Pages

    Just as with her books, Tan’s focus in this essay is her mother. Tan considered her book, The Joy Luck Club, a success after her mother read it and exclaimed over how easy it was to read. However, the audience of this essay is not Tan’s mother, but rather it is anyone who can relate to this situation. Tan’s purpose was to bring to attention the fact that when the language spoken at home is different from that spoken by the general public, problems will arise for those caught in...

    Read More

  • Communication in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

    578 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sadly, the characters revealed in The Joy Luck Club have personal histories so complicated by cultural and emotional misunderstandings that their lives are spent in failed attempts to cross the chasms created by these circumstances.

    Read More

More about Chinese Traditionalism in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

Open Document