"An A-?!?!? Why isn"t it an A+?!? You have to do better or will just end up being an underachiver!!" This is the usual comments many people like me hear from their mothers and fathers. The daughters in the novel The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan go through this kind of treatment to. This book shows many mother daughter relationships. The main characters consist of Lindo, Waverly, An-Mei, Suyuan, and Jing-Mei, also known as June. Lindo is mother to Waverly who is a very talented chess player. Suyuan is mother to Jing-Mei, who is a forced piano player by her mother. The story starts off in a house where the everyone has gotten together to have a party because June is going to China to meet her two long lost sisters. June"s mother passed away and now June has to join the Joy Luck Club. As the story goes on the members tell stories of their lives. The tell of the hardships of their lifes, all of them about mother-daughter relationships and how the mothers compared them and expected to much of them. When mothers compare and expect to much from their children disastrous consequences occur. .

             Jing-Mei, the piano player in The Joy Luck Club, felt the most pressure from her mother, because her mother had to follow behind the word of the prodigy in town. '"Of course you can be a prodigy, too '" (141) Jing-Mei's mother, Suyuan, tells her after receiving the news of Waverly, the chess prodigy. The expectations for Jing-Mei have heightened now that her mother's friend's daughter has been held in such a spotlight, as to be called a prodigy. Suyuan takes it upon herself to make her daughter rise above the accomplishments of her peers, and prove to the mothers their family is high in the running competition, whether Jing-Mei approves or disapproves. Suyuan decides that with piano lessons she and her daughter will rise above Lindo and Waverly. Jing-Mei only sees tedious lessons and hours of practice, but her mother envisions proudly sharing success stories between friends, comparing and convincing other mothers that her daughter was the best.