The Joy Luck Club

A detailed Summary of The Joy Luck Club

The movie The Joy Luck Club is based on the novel by Amy Tan. It describes the stories of immigrant mothers and their American born daughters. It emphasizes There are four mothers/daughter pairs. The main part of the movie is set in a living room with all characters having a going-away dinner for June. Suyuan, who recently passed away, is the founder of the Joy Luck Club, where the women meet to play a game of mahjong; the other members include Lindo, An-Mei, and Ying-Ying. During the dinner each of these mothers revel their agonizing and horrifying past in order to teach their daughter to be stronger and to improve the relationship they have with their daughters. The movie emphasizes the problems which are caused by passivity. Also it concentrates on how they problems start and how they are solved. For example, the daughters' stories are shown and their weaknesses pointed out and tied back to the mothers. The irony is that the American daughters become just like their Chinese mothers, weak and passive. The two pairs of mother-daughter relationship that show that irony well are An-Mei and Rose, and Ying-Ying and Lena. Both of the daughters experience difficulties in their marriages because they both passive and don't underst

Rose is a good example of the irony presented by this movie. Her passive nature leads to problems with her husband, Ted. Whenever Ted asks her to make an even simple decision she always says, "You decide" or "Either way is fine with me". She never has an opinion of her own because she is afraid of taking responsibility for deciding. After a while Rose and Ted become distant from each other. Rose is hosting Ted's business parties but doesn't participate in them, it seems as she is secluded outside looking inn thru a glass window. Trying to save the marriage Rose becomes pregnant since it is easier than changing herself. Ted loves the daughter his wife bore him but it is not enough to save their marriage. He finally realizes that he is not satisfied with his passive wife and doesn't want to make all the decision for her so he files for divorce. This saddens Rose and she bakes Ted his favorite peanut butter cake as one last attempt to save their marriage. An-Mei, Rose's mother feels responsible for her daughter passivity. She now needs to teach her daughter to stand up for her self like her mother thought her back in China.

In both of these mother-daughter stories, the American way raised daughters were just like their Chinese raised mothers. Both Rose and Lena were passive and believed that they were incapable of standing up for themselves. An-Mei's and Ying-Ying past experiences served as a teaching tools to teach the daughters the importance and significance of self-worth and inner strength.

Lena is another character that is an example of the irony of becoming like her mother. Similarly to Rose she is also having difficulties in her marriage. She is married to Harold, a greedy and successful architect. One of the first scenes in the movie regarding Lena deals with the couple's problems. They are having dinner at a restaurant and when the waiter brings the check Harold asks his wife to pay for half of it. Harold eats much more than his wife and makes seven times more money but he wants to be "equals" with Lena so he splits the bill in half. The list of products on the refrigerator is another symbol of unbalance between them. Lena is forced to pay for ice cream even though she never eats it.

Some common words found in the essay are:
China Ying-Ying, Wu An-Mei's, Similarly Rose, Rose Ted, An-Mei Ying-Ying, China An-Mei, Amy Tan, Ying-Ying Ying-Ying, An-Mei's Ying-Ying, Ying-Ying Lena, save marriage, teach daughter, an-mei's mother, joy luck club, stand self, shares story, marriage rose, rose ted, daughter lena, lena spirit, spirit ying-ying,

Approximate Word count = 1499
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English