Amy Tan struggled with many issues caused by her dual cultures, which she expressed thoroughly in her works. Daisy and John Tan were post war immigrants and the parents of Amy Tan (Amy Tan). Tan was given the Chinese name An-Mei, which stands for blessings from America (McCarthy). To them she was the blessing that they had received after their own struggles. Tan’s father came to America after WWII to become a minister (Amy Tan). Even though it seemed like Tan’s life was running smoothly tragedy struck. Both Tan’s father and older brother died of a brain tumor when Tan was only fifteen years old (Wiener 27). In her works, Amy Tan focuses on the struggles that Chinese-American women face in mother-daughter relationships, their struggles to control their cultural identity and the tragedy that accelerates the broken relationship.
Before coming to America, Tan’s mother had been forced into a marriage (Amy Tan). She divorced her first husband and went to America to marry Tan’s father, whom she had met in China during WWII (Martin). When Tan’s mother, Daisy, came to the United States, she had to leave her young children behind with the chance that one day she would be able to go back for them. Daisy’s children from her first marriage stayed in China while Daisy came to America (McCarthy). Tan models the story of her half-sisters being left behind by their mother in The Joy Luck Club. In the story, Suyuan Woo had to give up her daughters when she left China while facing many obstacles trying to find them (Wiener 25-27).Although Daisy did not have any remorse in leaving her family behind including her two daughters (Showalter 789). In The Hundred Secret Senses, Olivia’s father came from China to America seeking a better life but had no c...
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McCarthy, Joanne. Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition, Biography Reference Center. September 2006, Web.24 Feb. 2014. .
Parini, Jay. "Amy Tan." American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies.. New York: Scribner's, 2002. 292-297. Print.
Showalter, Elaine. "Amy Tan." The Vintage Book of American Women Writers. New York: Vintage Books, 2011. 789-799. Print.
Tan, Amy. The Hundred Secret Senses. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1995. Print.
Tan, Amy. The Opposite of Fate: a book of musings. New York: Putnam, 2003. Print.
Wiener, Gary. Women's Issues in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. Print.
i wish i could join in the universal praise for amy tan and her best-selling novel "the joy luck club." i wish i could find the latest chinese-american literary dish as appetizing as the rest of the american public does. but i can't. before amy tan entered the scene, public images of asian america had not developed since the middle of the century. the asian american male did not exist except as a barbaric japanese or vietcong soldier. the asian american female remained the adolescent suzy wong pipe dream, toyed with for a while and then deserted.
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.
Baym, N. (2007). he Norton Anthology of American Literature. Vol. A. New York: W. W. Norton.
Many women find that their mothers have the greatest influence on their lives and the way their strengths and weaknesses come together. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, the lives of four Chinese mothers and their Chinese-American daughters are followed through vignettes about their upbringings and interactions. One of the mothers, An-Mei Hsu, grows up away from her mother who has become the 4th wife of a rich man; An-Mei is forced to live with her grandmother once her mother is banned from the house, but eventually reunites and goes to live in the man’s house with her mother. Her daughter, Rose, has married an American man, Ted, but their marriage begins to end as he files for divorce; Rose becomes depressed and unsure what to do, despite her mother’s advice. An-Mei has strengths and weaknesses that shape her own courageous actions, and ultimately have an influence on her daughter.
Amy Ruth Tan was born to John and Daisy Tan on February 19, 2952 (“Amy Tan Biography”). Although Amy Tan’s parents were both born in China, she was American born. Daisy Tan was born to a wealthy family in Shanghai, China. John Tan, on the other hand, was an electrical engineer and Baptist minister. Amy Tan’s parents met in a dangerous decade of the 1940’s in China while battles were being fought on all fronts. John Tan was working for the United States Information Service during WWII, which made it fairly easy for him to escape China for the U.S. when the war ended. Daisy Tan, however, was not as fortunate; she had been imprisoned. She escaped in 1949 right before the Communist takeover; she left on the last boat to deport from Shanghai to the U.S. Shortly after Daisy arrived in the U.S., her and John Tan arranged to be married. Amy Tan’s parents had two other children besides her; they were John Jr. and Peter Tan. The Tan clan moved around many times while Amy Tan was growing up, finally settling in Santa Clara, California (Chatfield-Taylor 190).
Meanwhile, her mother suffered a serious illness. Tan resolved to take a trip to China with her mother if she recovered. In 1987, after Daisy Tan returned to health, they traveled to China to visit the three daughters that Daisy had not seen for several decades and the three sisters Tan had never met. The trip provided Tan with a new perspective on her mother, and it proved to be the key inspiration for her first book, The Joy Luck, a collection of sixteen...
Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print.
Heung, Marina. "Daughter-Text/Mother-Text: Matrilineage in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club." Feminist Studies (Fall 1993): 597-616.
Amy tan was raised by her Asian mother that she did not speak proper English “broken English”. The strategies that Amy Tan used in the story made her realized different English that she uses in her life. She was giving many speeches to a lot of people and along with her speeches she realized the different English that she never uses with her mother, when she was talking about her book The Joy Luck Club. She noticed her different English when she was walking with her mother and husband; she said “not waste money that way” her mom or her husband did not realized her different English.
The Joy Luck Club daughters incontestably become Americanized as they continue to grow up. They lose their sense of Chinese values, or Chinese tradition in which their mothers tried to drill into their minds. The four young women adopt the American culture and way of life, and they think differently than their traditional Chinese mothers do, upsetting the mothers greatly. The daughters do not even understand the culture of their mothers, and vice versa. They find that the American way of thinking is very different from that of the Chinese.
Berkin, Carol, Lisa Olson. Paddock, and Carl E. Rollyson. Encyclopedia of American Literature. New York: Facts on File, 2002. Print.
Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club describes the lives of first and second generation Chinese families, particularly mothers and daughters. Surprisingly The Joy Luck Club and, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts are very similar. They both talk of mothers and daughters in these books and try to find themselves culturally. Among the barriers that must be overcome are those of language, beliefs and customs.
In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan explores mother-daughter relationships, and at a lower level, relationships between friends, lovers, and even enemies. The mother-daughter relationships are most likely different aspects of Tan's relationship with her mother, and perhaps some parts are entirely figments of her imagination. In this book, she presents the conflicting views and the stories of both sides, providing the reader--and ultimately, the characters--with an understanding of the mentalities of both mother and daughter, and why each one is the way she is.
"I have already experienced the worst. After this, there is no worst possible thing" (Amy Tan 121). Throughout The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan tells stories of how mothers use the misfortunes in their lives, to try to teach their daughters about life. Many of the mothers had bad experiences in their pasts and do not want to see their daughters live through the same types of problems. They try to make their daughters' lives as easy and problem free as possible. However, the daughters do not see this as an act of love, but rather as an act of control. In the end, the daughters realize that their mothers tried to use their experiences to teach them not to give up hope, and to look at the good of an experience rather than the bad.
Baym, Nina et al. Ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 8th ed. New York: