The book I read is “The joy luck club”. It’s a novel written by Amy Tan, a Chinese American women, who wrote the book partly inspired by her own relationship to her mother. It traces the stories of four mothers who emigrate from China and their four very Americanized daughters. The main question raises from the story is the conflict between these mother-daughter pairs due to cultural differences, language barriers and generation gaps which lead to misunderstandings and communication problems. It also deals with the sacrifices mothers make, the mistakes they make in their own lives. As well as how they attempt to pass on their love, hope and wisdom from tragic experiences to their daughters. In general, the emotional relationship of these four One of the mothers, Suyuan, was forced to abandon her twin babies during the war in her early lives, so she consistently pushed Jing-mei to succeed in piano. But the more expectations and hopes from Suyuan towards Jing-mei, the more doubts for Jing-mei to ignore her own talents and abilities. Mother ‘Ying-Ying’ was abandoned by her husband and lived in great poverty for years. Then she immigrates with her second husband to America, where she is forced to adjust to an even lower standard of living. By comparison, her daughter Lena have led relatively better lives, but still has great difficulty achieving happiness. Lena is a successful architect, but her husband doesn’t value her where she is unhappy and considering divorce. An-mei’s mother, served as a wealthy man’s concubine, An-mei then see her mother commit suicide in order to enable her to have a bright future. Rose, Although there are communication problems exist, the mothers sacrifice for the love not only for their children, but also parents. For instance, An-mei’s mother slices off a piece of her own flesh to put in her mother’s soup, hoping to cure her from the last gasp. In my opinion, l think the four mothers immigrate to America majorly because they have a vision of their children having a better future in the U.S. They hope their children to live happy, successful lives which is able to avoid making the same mistakes they made before. On the other hand, from the daughters’ side, many look forward into their own futures with apprehension about life decisions that need to be made. In my opinion, as a daughter, it is not until l learn a key piece of wisdom from my mother that l can have a vision of my future which is more hopeful. For instance, Jing-mei finally able to see the true meaning behind her mother’s tales, she finds that the stories are actually act as an inspiration to her. Therefore, I think although the relationships are being weakened and tested repeatedly by cultural, linguistic and generational gaps, the mothers’ sacrifices for love are proving that this bong is not in danger or being
“Only two kinds of daughters,” “Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!”(476). When a mother pushes her daughter to hard, the daughter rebels, but realizes in the end that their mothers only wanted the best for them and had their best interest at heart. In the beginning, Jing-mei, is “just as excited as my mother,”(469). Jing-mei eagerly hoped to make her mother proud. However, her mother’s obsession with becoming a prodigy discouraged Jing-mei.
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...
Jing-mei realizes her mother was trying to help her out, but since their personalities clash, Jing-mei first believed her mother was forcing her to play piano. She thought her mother was setting up unrealistic expectations for her, when only she just wanted to see her daughter live the American Dream. She didn’t understand the Chinese way of thinking so she thought her mother was just being strict. Her mother wants her to be a strong, independent American woman. She just wanted her daughter to have all the opportunities she wasn’t able to have in China.
June-May receives a letter from her twin sisters shortly after her mother’s death. However, her sisters do not know their mother is dead and have been searching for her for years. June-May takes the letter to Auntie Lindo who writes back pretending to be their mother and says that they are coming to visit. June-May protests saying “They’ll think I’m responsible, that she died because I didn’t appreciate her,” (Tan 149). She believes that her sisters will hate her when she shows up without their mother and has to announce her death. As a result, Auntie Lindo writes back announcing the passing of the mother and announces that instead their sister, June-May, will be coming. It is during this trip that June-May fulfills her mother’s dream, “carrying with me her dreams of coming home. I am going to China,” (Tan 147). By doing this she gains another part of her mother. However, it is when June-May reunites with her sisters that she fully becomes one wi...
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)
...ies, she goes back to the piano and finds two songs. She begins to play “Pleading Child,” the song that caused the breaking point of her relationship with her mother. This song, with its fast and aggressive melody, best represents the mother’s aggressive attitude towards her daughter. Then Jing-mei plays the song next to “Pleading Child,” called “Perfectly Contented.” It turned out to be lighter and slower. It is a much happier song. Jing-mei’s determination to be herself, “Perfectly Contented,” corresponds with this song. “And after I played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.” (499). Like the ying-yang and the songs, Jing-mei’s relationship with her mother may seem disastrous and apart, but together they share a strong bond that makes them whole. Even though the two disagree, like the songs, they form one beautiful song.
The second and third sections are about the daughters' lives, and the vignettes in each section trace their personality growth and development. Through the eyes of the daughters, we can also see the continuation of the mothers' stories, how they learned to cope in America. In these sections, Amy Tan explores the difficulties in growing up as a Chinese-American and the problems assimilating into modern society. The Chinese-American daughters try their best to become "Americanized," at the same time casting off their heritage while their mothers watch on, dismayed. Social pressures to become like everyone else, and not to be different are what motivate the daughters to resent their nationality. This was a greater problem for Chinese-American daughters that grew up in the 50's, when it was not well accepted to be of an "ethnic" background.
The Joy Luck Club The Joy Luck Club movie, directed by Wayne Wang, portrays the lives of four mothers and daughters. The four mothers all shared hardships while being raised in China under the Chinese culture where they would either be submissive to a man or loose of hope. They later had to flee to America in the 1940’s to restore a better life. Unlike their daughters who have a better chance of happiness because they were raised in America, they pretty much became Americanized and not tied to their Chinese culture. But the mothers witnessed the same traits of their lives in their daughters, they decided to break the silence and share their stories.
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. The hardest problem communicating emerges between Suyuan and Jing-Mei. Suyuan is a very strong woman who lost everything she ever had in China: "her mother and father, her family home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls" (141).
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.
America was not everything the mothers had expected for their daughters. The mothers always wanted to give their daughters the feather to tell of their hardships, but they never could. They wanted to wait until the day that they could speak perfect American English. However, they never learned to speak their language, which prevented them from communicating with their daughters. All the mothers in The Joy Luck Club had so much hope for their daughters in America, but instead their lives ended up mirroring their mother’s life in China. All the relationships had many hardships because of miscommunication from their different cultures. As they grew older the children realized that their ...
Jing-mei and her mother have conflicting values of how Jing-mei should live her life. She tries to see what becoming a prodigy would be like from her mother's point of view and the perks that it would bring her as she states in the story "In all my imaginings, I was filled with a sense that I would soon become perfect. My mother and f...
...bowen/314fall/novels/lit.html) Each in their own way has learned a lot from their mothers and can see over the gap that divides them. In the Hsu family especially there is a strong sense of loyalty that is based on through each generation. “You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother before her. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh.” (Tan41) It is most important in Chinese culture to remember who you are and where you came from.
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.