The Joy Luck Club Lena Character Analysis

626 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Joy luck club point of view analysis

In the novel The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan communicates that women need to develop an identity to survive rough times through Lena and Ying-Ying lack of spirit and inability to fight destiny. As shown through Lena and Ying-ying women need to evolve to endure through their stages of life. Both went through the motions of life without any of their spirit. Even though it was possible for them to change things they let opportunities to pass through them causing an inability to change things in their life as they grew older. Amy Tan shows how Lena and Ying-ying lacks spirit as both don’t speak for themselves making it harder for them fight against hard times. Ying-Ying growing up is a strong and cunning girl but after getting into a loveless marriage she …show more content…

Lena is showing her mother her house she is nervous of how her mom would see the house as her mother had a certain ability to read into the situation. After showing her mother where she would be sleeping her mother ask about the crooked table that Lena’s husband made and tries to explain why having a crooked table is not good, “You put something else on top everything, fall down. Chunwang Chihan” (163). Chunwang Chihan means how one thing is always the result of something. Tan was describing how the result of Lena’s lack of spirit that she is unable to fight against destiny. Ying-ying fighting spirit was long lost after she allowed herself to be married just because she saw a sign that she would married the man. She described how she lost herself and wasn’t able to reclaim her spirit to give her strength to live her life: “I let myself become a wounded animal” (251). Tan showed how Ying-ying allowed herself to lose her strength after getting in a loveless marriage because of her failure to act against her destiny or really the sign she saw that made her think she would get

Show More
Related

  • 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

  • The Joy Luck Club Analysis

    914 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, four Chinese born mothers and their four American born daughters tell stories from their own point of view about their relationships with one another. These four mothers demonstrate the finest parenting by trying to keep their heritage alive and educate their daughters, while being immigrants. Through the mothers' actions, they are able to teach and influence their daughters about their Chinese heritage, about everyday life and situations, and how to stand up for themselves all while being in an overwhelming American society.

    Read More

  • The Joy Luck Club Literary Analysis

    500 Words  | 1 Pages

    No matter where one grows up, they will always strive for their parent’s approval. The location, the time, or their age will not determine if they would love for their parents to approve of them. The problem usually uproots because the parents grow up in a different generation than their kids. Some parents want their kids to do better than them, or grow up as they did. In Hosseini’s Kite Runner and in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, express the problem that children have getting their parent’s approval very well.

    Read More

  • Paradise Of The Blind Literary Analysis

    1464 Words  | 3 Pages

    Coming of age is essential to the theme of many major novels in the literary world. A characters journey through any route to self-discovery outlines a part of the readers own emotional perception of their own self-awareness. This represents a bridge between the book itself and the reader for the stimulating connection amongst the two. It is seen throughout Paradise of the Blind by Duong Thu Huong, Hang’s coming of age represents her development as a woman, her changing process of thinking, and her ability to connect to the reader on a personal level.

    Read More

  • Influences of the Past

    1117 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the novel The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan portrays the effects of childhood events on the roles and attitudes of the present lives each character must face. Particularly, Lena St. Clair felt restricted by her mother as she shields her from the dangers of the outside world. Consequently, when Lena did face trouble, she was unable to fight back and saw evil in everything she saw. Furthermore, the constant conflict that arose from the male superiority in Ying-Ying’s marriage and her miscommunications with her husband influenced Lena’s present behavior. Instead of expressing her own concerns, Lena allows her husband to make major decisions. Influenced by her childhood experiences and the troubles of the marriage between her parents, Lena inherits a passive role in her relationship to Harold.

    Read More

  • For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf

    1603 Words  | 4 Pages

    As the women narrate the harm caused by men, they lose track of the beings that they once were and become different people in order to cause a reaction in others. These women are hurt in ways that cause them to change their way of living. The Lady in Blue becomes afraid of what others will think of her because a man impregnated her: “i cdnt have people [/] lookin at me [/] pregnant [/] I cdnt have my friends see this” (Shange, Abortion Cycle # 1 Lines 14- 16). Instead of worrying about the life of her child, she worries about how her...

    Read More

  • Amy Tan's Mother Tongue

    1115 Words  | 3 Pages

    Amy Tan, in ?Mother Tongue,? Does an excellent job at fully explaining her self through many different ways. It?s not hard to see the compassion and love she has for her mother and for her work. I do feel that her mother could have improved the situation of parents and children switching rolls, but she did the best she could, especially given the circumstances she was under. All in all, Amy just really wanted to be respected by her critics and given the chance to prove who she is. Her time came, and she successfully accomplished her goals. The only person who really means something to her is her mother, and her mother?s reaction to her first finished work will always stay with her, ?so easy to read? (39).

    Read More

  • Americanization in The Joy Luck Club

    1951 Words  | 4 Pages

    Amy Tan is a Chinese-American author. She had become Americanized, according to her mother, who still held traditional Chinese values. They fought sometimes, just as the women and daughters of The Joy Luck Club, over who was right and who was wrong regarding many problems they encountered. Tan most likely modeled The Joy Luck Club after her relationship with her mother. She even dedicated the novel “To my mother and the memory of her mother. You asked me once what I wo...

    Read More

  • A Pair of Tickets by Amy Tan

    1117 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...Also an important quote is when she says, "But today I realize I've never really known what it means to be Chinese. I am thirty-six years old" (857). Even though she was in her 30's and still had that identity crisis, it was uplifting knowing that all it took for her to resolve that conflict was one meeting with her sisters.

    Read More

  • Mother Daughter Relationship in The Joy Luck Club

    1171 Words  | 3 Pages

    The language between a mother and a daughter can create a huge brick wall in their relationship because they have different views on life, and how they should handle it. In the book "The Joy Luck Club," by Amy Tan, a story is told of An-Mei Hus and her daughter Rose Hsu Jordan, who is going though a divorce. An- Mei wants her daughter, Rose, to try and save her marriage. But Rose knows it’s pointless to try and upon that she decides to learn to stick up for her self, get a lawyer, and fight her soon to be ex-husband for the house. The relationship between An-Mei Hsu and Rose Hsu Jordan shows that language is a brick wall, because they don’t understand why wants what they want. Rose doesn’t care to save her marriage; she only wants to get the house. When her mother, An-Mei, wants Rose to fight to save her marriage, because it’s the Chinese way, and how the only way to keep her honor among her family.

    Read More

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

    1798 Words  | 4 Pages

    Throughout Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club, the reader can see the difficulites in the mother-daughter relationships.  The mothers came to America from China hoping to give their daughters better lives than what they had.  In China, women were “to be obedient, to honor one’s parents, one’s husband, and to try to please him and his family,” (Chinese-American Women in American Culture).  They were not expected to have their own will and to make their own way through life.  These mothers did not want this for their children so they thought that in America “nobody [would] say her worth [was] measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch…nobody [would] look down on her…” (3).  To represent everything that was hoped for in their daughters, the mothers wanted them to have a “swan- a creature that became more than what was hoped for,” (3).  This swan was all of the mothers’ good intentions.  However, when they got to America, the swan was taken away and all she had left was one feather.

    Read More

  • The American Dream in The Joy Luck Club

    1800 Words  | 4 Pages

    When analyzing the Joy Luck club it is important to consider the life of the author. It is apparent after studying both The Joy Luck Club and Amy Tan that there are some incredible similarities among the two, particularly the story of mother Suyuan-Woo and her daughter Jing-Mei Woo. Suyuan is a main character and plays an extremely important role in the novel even though she passed away. She created the Joy Luck club years ago and is the main reason why this tight kit family exists today. Suyuan decided to create the Joy Luck club during a ve...

    Read More

  • Subjugation of Women Exposed in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

    959 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel, The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, Ann-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying Ying St. Clair are all women who grow up in a traditional China, where there is sexism. They deal with serious problems that corrupt their lives. Through perseverance and the passing of time their lives return to normal.

    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

  • The Relationship Between a Mother and Daughter in Two Kinds by Amy Tan

    972 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ith Jing Mei and her mother, it is compounded by the fact that there are dual nationalities involved as well. Not only did the mother’s good intentions bring about failure and disappointment from Jing Mei, but rooted in her mother’s culture was the belief that children are to be obedient and give respect to their elders. "Only two kinds of daughters.....those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!" (Tan1) is the comment made by her mother when Jing Mei refuses to continue with piano lessons. In the end, this story shows that not only is the mother-daughter relationship intricately complex but is made even more so with cultural and generational differences added to the mix.

    Read More

More about The Joy Luck Club Lena Character Analysis

Open Document