Yelling at a Brick Wall
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.
An-Mei Hsu was born and raised in China, but not by her mother. Her mother became the concubine of another man when An-Mei’s father had died. So An-Mei and her little brother went to live with there grandmother who they called Popo. At the house in which they lived they were not aloud to talk about, or even speak of there mother and soon enough, An-Mei and her little brother had forgotten her altogether. But Popo becomes very sick, and An-Mei’s mother returns to the home. When she was there she cuts a piece of her arm off and puts it in to soup for Popo. This was to show great respect, and was also a way of trying to cure the sick. "Here is how I came to love me mother. How I saw my own true nature. What was beneath my skin. Inside my bones." (pg40) This is the point where An-Mei is thought about respect and honor. She saw what her mother had done for Popo, and found it in her heart to forgive her and love her again. From then on she wanted to make sure that her daughters would have honor, and respect for the family ways. "The pain you must forget, because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones." (pg41) She saw what her mother take a piece of her own flesh and give it to Popo in order to earn her respect and honor back.
No relationship is ever perfect no matter how great it seems. In the novel The Joy Luck Club, written by Amy Tan, she tells the story of a few mother daughter pairs that are in a group named the Joy Luck Club. The Joy Luck Club is a group of women who come together once a week to play mahjong. The founder of the Joy Luck Club, Suyuan Woo, dies, leaving her daughter Jing-mei to take her place in the club. Her daughter, Jing-mei, receives money from the other members of the club to travel to China in order to find her mother's twin daughters who were left many years ago. In this book you get more of the details of this family and a few more. Amy Tan uses the stories of Jing-mei and Suyuan, Waverly and Jindo, and An-mei and Rose to portray her theme of, mother daughter relationships can be hard at times but they are always worth it in the end.
In their articles, Chang Rae-Lee and Amy Tan establish a profound ethos by utilizing examples of the effects their mother-daughter/mother-son relationships have had on their language and writing. Lee’s "Mute in an English-Only World" illustrates his maturity as a writer due to his mother’s influence on growth in respect. Tan, in "Mother Tongue," explains how her mother changed her writing by first changing her conception of language. In any situation, the ethos a writer brings to an argument is crucial to the success in connecting with the audience; naturally a writer wants to present himself/herself as reliable and credible (Lunsford 308). Lee and Tan, both of stereotypical immigrant background, use their memories of deceased mothers to build credibility in their respective articles.
In the chapter "Scar" the characteristic of honor and respect is first noticed. In this chapter An-mei finds out how her mother deserted her, her mother did leave for a good reason, which was to maintain the honor of her family, but either way her mother left her. Her grandmother had to raise her, and she learned much about the Asian woman from her. An-mei was showing some disrespect towards one of her aunts, and her aunt told her that she was being disrespectful. Her grandmother then interjected and said, "When you lose your face, An-mei...it is like dropping your necklace down a well. The only way you can get it back is to fall in after it.
In Amy Tan short story, The Joy Luck Club, she reveals personal challenges that hint the reader of gender roles in that specific society. Men and women each have specific standards and expectations in the society. The men are often viewed as the one who work all day to support their families financially. While the women, are often viewed as housewives that have to provide the basic and sentimental care to their families. The author shares that "The man who was my husband brought me and our two babies to Keweilin because he thought we would be safe" (Tan 74). Goes back throughout generation and even stories and fairy tales reveal the difference between a man and a woman. Times do change and so should people 's ideas as well. Although, people
The Essay written by Amy Tan titled 'Mother Tongue' concludes with her saying, 'I knew I had succeeded where I counted when my mother finished my book and gave her understandable verdict' (39). The essay focuses on the prejudices of Amy and her mother. All her life, Amy's mother has been looked down upon due to the fact that she did not speak proper English. Amy defends her mother's 'Broken' English by the fact that she is Chinese and that the 'Simple' English spoken in her family 'Has become a language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk' (36). Little did she know that she was actually speaking more than one type of English. Amy Tan was successful in providing resourceful information in every aspect. This gave the reader a full understanding of the disadvantages Amy and her mother had with reading and writing. The Essay 'Mother Tongue' truly represents Amy Tan's love and passion for her mother as well as her writing. Finally getting the respect of her critics and lucratively connecting with the reaction her mother had to her book, 'So easy to read' (39). Was writing a book the best way to bond with your own mother? Is it a struggle to always have the urge to fit in? Was it healthy for her to take care of family situations all her life because her mother is unable to speak clear English?
Tan makes an appeal to emotion with the connections she describes. A connection between a mother and daughter that is wrought with emotion is as relatable as humaneness is to a human. There is a soft declaration to be found in Tan’s statement, “I knew I had succeeded where it counted when my mother finished reading my book and gave me her verdict: “So easy to read.” Tan gains trust by appealing to emotion with something as understandable as the loving and more often than not tension riddled connection between a mother and her daughter. Tan incorporates the intimacy of the “broken” language in correlation to her husband with these words, “It has become our language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk, the language I grew up with” (Tan 1). Under the assumption that Louis DeMattei (Tan’s husband) has no prior history with the Chinese Language Tan makes an important point of the use of the “broken” language she learned from her mother. Demattei doesn’t inquire or correct Tan when she switches between the English she acquired from the vast expanses of English literature and the English she acquired from her mother. Tan says, “he even uses it with me,” there is an implied level of comfort within the relationship she has with her husband. Tan shares what is viewed as “broken” and in need of fixing with Demattei and he reciprocates, leaving them
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.
One type of effect the Chinese mothers’ expectations has in their relationship with their “Americanized” daughter is negative since the mothers are unable to achieve anything. An-Mei Hsu expects her daughter to listen and obey as the young ones do in Chinese culture, but instead receives a rebellious and stubborn daughter, “‘You only have to listen to me.’ And I cried, ‘But Old Mr. Chou listens to you too.’ More than thirty years later, my mother was still trying to make me listen’” (186-187). Instead of the circumstances improving, the mother is never able to achieve anything; her forcing and pushing her daughter to the Chinese culture goes to a waste. They are both similar in this sense because both are stubborn; the daughter learns to be stubborn through American culture and wants to keep herself the way she is, whereas the mother wants to remove this teaching from American culture and does not give u...
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.
Tan was born to a pair of Chinese immigrants. Her mother understood English extremely well, but the English she spoke was “broken.”(36) Many people not familiar with her way of speaking found it very difficult to understand her. As a result of this, Tan would have to pretend to be her mother, and she called people up to yell at them while her mother stood behind her and prompted her. This caused Tan to be ashamed of her mother throughout her youth, but as she grew, she realized that the language she shares with her mother is a “language of intimacy” (36) that she even uses when speaking with her husband.
The problem started with her mother because she spoke broken English. She had a hard time during her life when she moved to the US because she couldn’t speak English well. The first reason was mixed the English with Chinese, and they used code. The family didn’t practice the language. On one day Amy Tan 's mother exposed to a lot of attitude and that’s bothering her because when she spoke to the native speaker some people understood 50% and the other did not understand her. Since she wants to order something they didn’t give her a nice service, or tried to ignore her, but Amy Tan always tried to fix the problem for her mother because she can speak the English clearly. Amy Tan 's mother felt depressing and Her daughter decided to make her mother glad, so she made a huge deal for her mother because she made her mother tried to speak English by explaining the English words to Chinese, and that’s made the English for her mother more easily just to be in touched with the American people. Even Amy Tan 's mother was struggling with English, but she plain in her life goal that’s mean nothing impossible to do it, and everything from learning could be possible. If anyone would something they
...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.
June-May fulfills her mother’s name and life goal, her long-cherished wish. She finally meets her twin sisters and in an essence fulfills and reunites her mother with her daughter through her. For when they are all together they are one; they are their mother. It is here that June-May fulfills the family portion of her Chinese culture of family. In addition, she fully embraces herself as Chinese. She realizes that family is made out of love and that family is the key to being Chinese. “And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.” (Tan 159). Finally, her mother’s life burden is lifted and June-May’s doubts of being Chinese are set aside or as she says “After all these years, it can finally be let go,” (Tan 159).
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.
No matter the circumstances they are facing or the state in life the fourth mothers are in, they always find a way to celebrate and enjoy the most out of life through their Joy Luck Club, and every small custom brings them closer to home, even if they are thousands of miles away. To the mothers in the novel particularly, a party is not just a time of relaxation and relief to let loose the stress life has given them, but a way of bonding and strengthening connections with the families they have and the friendships they have formed over the years. Hosted in the Hsus’ house, Jing-Mei remarks how “eating is not a gracious event here. It’s as though everybody had been starving.. They are not like the ladies of Kweilin...who..savoured their food with a certain detached delicacy.” (20-21) The mention of Kweilin leads back to how the mothers in the past had started their tradition of the Joy Luck Club of feasting on food lavishly and loudly playing mahjong while war erupted by their doorsteps started as a way of making the most out of what they have, cherishing friendships and the fortunate things they have received in their lives even when tragedy strikes.