In the “Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan, she writes about the stories that came from the mothers who lived in China and their harsh experiences they lived through. There are four mothers total and four daughters.Suyuan Woo is the mother of Jing-Mei Woo.An-mei Hsu is the mother of Rose Hsu Jordan. Lindo Jong is the mother of Waverly Jong and Ying-ying St.Clair is the mother Lena St.Clair. Each of the mothers came to America to live a better life and to give their kids a better opportunity to be successful. In the midst of that, each mother and daughter duo have a culture clash between the two. The mothers have their traditional Chinese way of do things and teaching their daughters lessons they learned when they were young. And the daughters sometimes …show more content…
In the article , “ Negotiating the Geography of Mother-Daughter Relationships in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club” by Michelle Cafner wood it states, “ In the chapter, "Four Directions," Waverly Jong is unable to translate her mother's Taiyuan stories that inform her mother's strength. Lindo tells Waverly stories of the Sun clan to explain to Waverly the strength…” ( p1). Flashing back to the Lindo childhood, she learned the power of invisible strength and hopes to pass that on to her daugher. She was forced into a marriage at a very young age. She wanted to find a escape to get out her marraige. Once she found out her husband gave a child to another woman; that was her way to escape. In the article “Generational Differences and the Diaspora In the Joy Luck Club” by Walter Shear, it states: “ In her struggle to excriate herself from the situation, she doesn’t blame her family who made the arrangements but the society”… (p1) . Her getting out of the marriage proved to her the strength she never knew. Flashing forward to her daughter Waverly, she wanted her to learn the same values. Lindo grew up the traditional Chinese way. She looked up to her mother and wanted Waverly to do the same. Their relationship started of with tension when Waverly learned to play chess. Waverly states, “ I was touted as the Great American Hope, a child …show more content…
Her mother wants her to try and save the marriage. Rose Hsu was pretty much over it and just wanted the house. An-mei wants her to to stay because in Chinese cultural, it’s better to stay and work it out. Growing up, An-mei lived in a society where she couldn’t speak up. Her mother was pregnant and lived as concubine for a man. Her mother taught her to suck up her tears and keep her pain to herself. She seen her mother always being obedient. An- mei states, “ I was raised the Chinese way: I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people’s misery…” ( Tan 215). Even though An-mei eventually founded her voice and stood up for herself, it seems like she still want the traditional Chinese culture to remain in the family. Much like her mother, Rose Hsu is very passive. In her marriage, she often let her husband take control of their marriage.Rose Hsu states, “ Born without wood so that I listened to too many people.She knew this because she had almost become this way” (Tan 191). An-mei and Rose life in a way have certain things alike. Rose Hsu just like her mom will learn how to have a voice and make final decision on her marraige. Rose often tried to avoid her mom when it comes to advice on her marriage. She much rather talk to the psychiatrist. An-mei stats to Rose, “ I am not telling you to save your marriage,” “I only say you should speak up.” ( Tan
She explains that there is no lasting shame in being born in America, and that as a minority you are the first in line for scholarships. Most importantly, she notes that "In America, nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you (289).” Living in America, it was effortless for Waverly to accept American circumstances, simply because she was born into liberties of America without a true realization of what advantages she had gained effortlessly. Her mother was far less fortunate however, having struggled so hard to find her own independence while attempting to keep true to her cultural background. As a Chinese mother though, she also wanted her daughter to learn the importance of Chinese character. She tried to teach her Chinese-American daughter "How to obey parents and listen to your mother 's mind. How not to show your own thoughts, to put your feelings behind your face so you can take advantage of hidden opportunities . . . How to know your own worth and polish it, never flashing it around like a cheap ring
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.
Throughout “The Joy Luck Club”, Chinese fables are used as significant teachings for life. ‘Feathers from a Thousand Li Away: Introduction’ is used for the first section because the chapters are about the mother’s journey from China to America. The story elaborates on the sacrifice the mother is making for a better life for their children. The story introduces the contention between American culture and Chinese culture conflict because the mother sees the Americanized daughter as the privilege. Amy wrote, “And over there [America] she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow!” (Feathers from a Thousand Li Away: Introduction, Page 17) This quote means that the daughters born in America will not understand the struggles the mother's faced
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.
Instead, she chooses to accept decisions others make for her, which encompasses her with no control over the life around her. An instance where this takes place is when Rose reveals to her mother that she is separating from her husband Ted, and explains to An-mei “don’t tell me to save my marriage anymore. It’s hard enough as it is”, to which she retorts “I am not telling you to save your marriage, I only say you should speak up”. (193) Moments such as these can also be depicted in a previous instance with An-mei, where Rose mentions that “[she] used to believe everything [her] mother said, even if she didn’t know what she meant” (185). Through these passages, it is apparent that Rose lacks wood, one out of five Chinese elements, and therefore making decisions for herself makes her confused. As she listens to too many people but is unable to take her mother’s advice, she steers clear of making her own decisions which ultimately build up to her marriage with Ted to crumble. Since Rose was a child, An-mei pushed strongly for Rose to try and fight her divorce with Ted and take control of the situation, however, Rose allows her marriage to end and does not take her advice into consideration. As Rose allows others to make choices on her behalf, she becomes passive to those around her, specifically to her mother An-mei. Rose’s passivity conclusively contributes to their unhealthy relationships as Rose does not learn how to stand up for herself and is unable to pick up on her mother’s assertive qualities. From both of these traits, it causes this dynamic to suffer as the passivity of Rose and secrecy of An-mei conflict, as Rose does not see the importance of listening to her mother as she is unaware of where those traits come
The Chinese mothers, so concentrated on the cultures of their own, don't want to realize what is going on around them. They don't want to accept the fact that their daughters are growing up in a culture so different from their own. Lindo Jong, says to her daughter, Waverly- "I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents' promise. This means nothing to you because to you, promises mean nothing. A daughter can promise to come to dinner, but if she has a headache, a traffic jam, if she wants to watch a favorite movie on T.V., she no longer has a promise."(Tan 42) Ying Ying St.Clair remarks- "...because I remained quiet for so long, now my daughter does not hear me. She sits by her fancy swimming pool and hears only her Sony Walkman, her cordless phone, her big, important husband asking her why they have charcoal and no lighter fluid."(Tan 64)
There are big differences in how Chinese mothers act towards their children compared to Western mothers including the expression of feelings and approval, the worth of their children, and what is best for them. Amy Chua (2011) incorporates her own personal experiences of being a Chinese mother within her article and compares that to what she witnesses in America.
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.
Oftentimes the children of immigrants to the United States lose the sense of cultural background in which their parents had tried so desperately to instill within them. According to Walter Shear, “It is an unseen terror that runs through both the distinct social spectrum experienced by the mothers in China and the lack of such social definition in the daughters’ lives.” This “unseen terror” is portrayed in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club as four Chinese women and their American-born daughters struggle to understand one another’s culture and values. The second-generation women in The Joy Luck Club prove to lose their sense of Chinese values, becoming Americanized.
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.
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.
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.
The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan is a piece of literature that displays the power of femininity. Through the past couple of centuries the role that women play in society has drastically changed. Women in various societies have experienced turmoil due to being discriminated against and looked down upon often. Women were viewed upon as being the house caregiver and leaving majority of the other jobs in society to men. Women have moved up the social ladder, politics, jobs, and in households. Femininity is shown throughout The Joy Luck Club. These women each have their own life experiences and stories but through it all they remained strong. Rules and regulations for women in China were very restrictive. Women had to live up to the ideal model of being obedient, hard working, bearing children, hide her unhappiness, and to not complain about anything. In China the women had little worth and were only seen as valuable to their immediate family members. Most of the mothers left China for the reason of improving their daughter’s lives in America. The novel demonstrates various characteristics of how women are represented. The theme of women is demonstrated through the hardships experienced, ethics and self-worth.
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.
...mbers due to an unfortunate circumstance and struggles to b accepted once again and regain her dignity. An-Mei’s daughter Rose also learns a lesson of acceptance as well as self-worth when it comes to the end of her marriage. Rose was never accepted by her husband’s wealthy family from the beginning due to her Asian heritage however her husband loves her so dearly that he marries her regardless of his parent’s opinions. As their life together progresses, Rose finds herself worrying less and less about making herself happy and losing her own opinions which ultimately cause her husband to lose interest in her. As they file for divorce rose continues to try to save the marriage but soon realizes with the help of her mother that she is better than that and should stand up for herself for once. In the end this newly gained self-confidence is what saves her marriage.