The Growth of Mothers and Daughters in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club

The Growth of Mothers and Daughters in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club

Every twelve months of every year the seasons change from spring, summer, fall and then winter. The cycle repeats itself every year having similar weather conditions as the previous season before. Like the four seasons mother and daughter are very similar in the way they change and grow throughout time. A mother learns from her mother and then passes on her morals and rituals on to her daughters. As the daughters grow with age they have a tendency to take on many qualities of their mothers such as their cultural ways and some day they will pass these traits onto their children. Through years of experience and hard work, Amy Tan shows the viewers the experiences of the mother and daughters while growing up in Chinese and American lifestyles.

Many of the women in the novel had great characteristics, which represented them as strong and faithful women. One example of this is An-Mei and her daughter Rose. When An-Mei was a child her mother was not in her life, she had re-married a man name Wu-Tsing, and she was then known as a concubine. An-Mei’s mother was the third wife of three and in a Chinese family, re-marrying after being a widow is a shameful act. An-Mei did eventually meet her mother and she learned a great deal from her. She was always told to wear her best clothes when she was in the presence of her family and she even taught An-Mei a recipe that was intended to save lives. Popo An-Mei’s mother was dying and this is what she told her daughter Rose. “This is how a daughter honors her mother. It is shou so deep it is in your bones. The pain of flesh is nothing. The pain you must forget. Because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones. You must peel off your skin, and that of your mothers, and her mother before her. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh.” (Tan 41) An-mei’s mother had removed a chunk of flesh from her arm; it had her blood, her mother’s blood, and her grandmother’s blood in it. In this ritual a life was supposed to be saved, it was considered magic. An-Mei left with her mother to live with her and her new husband after her popo passed away.