The Joy Luck Club
In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan explores the different mother-daughter relationships between the characters, 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 a figment 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. 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, troubled. Social pressures to become like everyone else, and not to be different are what motivated the daughters to resent their nationality. They didn't try to comprehend their culture, which was a big part of understanding their traditional Chinese mothers. The swan feather in the beginning of the book was a symbol of all hopes and dreams that the mother wanted to give to her daughter. This woman crossing
Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. Burbank: Vintage Books. 1991. Lena feels ignored by her mother, who lies in bed or on the couch all day, and she longs to be seen and loved by her mother. She learned an important lesson from her neighbors as a child. She would constantly hear the mother and daughter yelling, screaming, fighting, and throwing things. She was shocked by the difference of her neighbor's noisy confrontations and her relationship with her mother, which was marked by silence and avoidance. She realized that the confrontations were an expression of love between mother and daughter; she realizes the importance of expressing one's feelings, even at the cost of peace and harmony. Lena and her husband's relationship were in turmoil but she didn't express it. Ever since they started dating, they always split the cost of everything. This misunderstanding was covered up by Lena's willingness to go along with the status quo, and many other things in their lives were also concealed by false appearances. The balance sheet on their refrigerator was a sign that made it possible for her mother to redeem herself to her. The economic metaphor illustrates how poor her marriage was in the balance of what really mattered. Like the table that Harold built, the marriage is showy without being functional. When the table falls it illustrates the breaking of the marriage, and the freeing of the spirit of her mother, which gave Lena the strength to leave the marriage (Reuben Chapter 10). Ying-ying was a mother who was lost spiritually and never seemed to regain herself fully. At an early age she lost her sense of independent will. This was an outcome of a deceitful marriage and a tragic lost of a son. She knew she had no future left, so she lived like a ghost, not caring about anything; she had lost herself. Ying-ying's profound belief in fate and her personal destiny led to a policy of submissiveness and even listlessness. She lived like a ghost even after giving birth to Lena, but she called it using her "black side" (The Joy Luck Club-movie). Because she was born in the year of the Tiger, Ying-ying had a gold side, "leaps with its fierce heart," and a black side, which "stands still with cunning, hiding its gold between trees, seeing and not being seen, waiting patiently for things to come" (The Joy Luck Club-movie). When she was young, she only knew how to use her gold side, her fierce and headstrong side. But after she killed her son, she had to learn to use her black side. For years afterward, she survived using her black side by "waiting between the trees" and using her cunning. Only after Ying-ying realizes that she has passed on her passivity and fatalism to her daughter, Lena, does she take any initiative to change. She raised Lena not knowing her worth. "She [my daughter] has no chi...how can I leave the world without leaving her my spirit? So this is what I will do. I will gather together my past and...see a thing that has already happened. The pain that cut my spirit loose, I will hold that pain in my hand until it becomes hard and shiny, more clear. And then my fierceness can come back...I will use this sharp pain to penetrate my daughter's tough skin and cut her tiger spirit loose. She will fight me, because this is the nature of two tigers. But I will win and give her my spirit because this is why a mother loves a daughter" (286). Lindo Jong, whose daughter, Waverly, doesn't even know four Chinese words, describes the complete difference and incompatibility of the two worlds she tried to connect for her daughter, "American circumstances and Chinese character" (The Joy Luck Club-movie). 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" (289). Lindo learns from a
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Approximate Word count = 2866
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)
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