Belonging In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

She simultaneously loves and resents her children because, while she is their mother, she feels that they have taken away her freedom and self-purpose. As Edna journeys in her awakening, she strives to find meaning for herself as Edna, not her children's mother. To prove she is more than just a mother, she distances herself from normal motherly responsibilities. “He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother's place to look after children, whose on earth was it?”(Chopin, 15) Edna's neglect of her children stems from others expectations for her to submit to and look after her

Nevertheless, that is not the case. The people who argue that Asian parenting is too severe maintain that even though Asian parenting has shown that academic results are higher, the children are treated too harshly by the parents and end up with no real satisfaction on their end. This is based on the common misconception that Asian parents are overbearing and overly demanding since the publishing of the memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Amy Chua, a professor of law at Yale Law School. For example, “To most of the American public, Chua is simply forcing her children toward parentally-defined success, which most believe is unlikely to lead to true happiness in children” (Wang). What Wang is saying is that most of those who read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother had the impression that Amy Chua was only forcing her children to learn what she wanted them to learn instead of what made them happy.

“I couldn't possibly tell anyone the truth: how worthless and ugly Niang made me feel most of the time…” (54). It is important because it supports the belief that Adeline feels despised by her family. This proves that Niang is seriously affecting her stepdaughter's feelings. Adeline is treated unfairly by her family, especially by her parents. In Chinese Cinderella, Adeline Yen Mah’s story about her childhood experiences, she suffered and she wasn't happy, but she always knew things would get better someday.

A girl was not, as I had supposed, simply what I was; it was what I had to become. It was a definition, always touched with emphasis, with reproach and disappointment. Also it was a joke on me(142)”. The main character does not take into account how her mother might want someone to bond with until she is older. Because of her immaturity she has a bad relationship with her parents and her brother even though her thoughts are justifiable.

For example, the narrator in “The Word Love” lives a hideous life. She is not proud of her life in America because she is forced to do things that her mother warned her against. She lives with a man with whom they are not married, and she hates it that the practice goes against the values that her mother taught her. On the other hand, in the story “Silver Pavements and Golden Roofs” a girl from

Incompatible Interracial relationships are difficult to maintain in the United States because of differences in cultural upbringing as well as racism and xenophobia. The book The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan focuses on four Chinese mothers who describe their past hardships and adjustment to the United States as well as their relationships with their American born daughters. The mothers try to save their children from experiencing the same things that they have been through. In the book, there are a few interracial couples such as Rose Hsu and Ted, Waverly Jong and Rich, and Ying Ying St.Clair and her husband Clifford. They all have trouble loving and understanding each other.

While as informed by the author Beloved has no good intentions but only to cause Sethe pain, Seth can’t because she is blinded by her aim to make it up “to her daughter.” Blinded by her love for her daughter, Sethe continually shares information about her past with Beloved which ultimately serves as a catalyst for the materialization of unpleasant memories she had lived to suppress. While Denver, Sethe’s child relates well with Beloved under the impression that she is creating a bond with her, she is oblivious to the fact that beloved is using that opportunity to make her mother suffer and destroy her. Through highlighting the experiences of these characters at this point, Morrison sets out to use the trauma theory to show the implications of trauma and the actions people result to to go through their experiences. In this case, the author shows guilt as an outcome of trauma and how Sethe blinded by her guilt gets exploited and even at some time her pain get intentionally added. Informed by the insights of the trauma theory, the author shows the far-reaching implications of trauma where in the case of the characters, they become reckless and oblivious even in situations where other people seek to abuse and cause them harm (Kreyling

Denver therefore bears the brunt of Sethe’s communal alienation. Only an infant when her sister is killed by her mother, Denver is sheltered from reality. Never having endured the life of a slave, Denver undergoes a secondary oppression at the hands of the matriarchal characters in her family. Denver’s forced isolation leads to a naïveté that has troubling consequences on the development of her own individuality: having been made a pariah by a community yet only learning the reason for her alienation at a later age leads to Denver’s inability to cope with reality and her subsequent withdrawal into the safety of isolation. Despite representing Sethe’s life after slavery, Sethe’s inability to both forgive and release herself from her guilt sees her desperate attempts to veil it with a love for Denver that Paul D claims is “too thick” (Morrison, 2007: 203).

As for Jing-Mei and her mother, their sacrifice came from the cultural clashes in which conflicting beliefs held by the mother and the daughter resulted in a broken family relationship. She wished for her daughter success and fame, and she made every endeavour to realize her prodigy child dream, doing unpaid housekeeping work in order to afford piano lessons for Jing-Mei, not to mention leaving behind everything she had in China: her whole family, including her twin baby daughters when she departed to America. Ironically, the liberal, self-asserting values that America has

There is a social norm to respect one’s elders that is universal throughout the world. Lucy refuses to follow this belief in the way that she completely resents her mother. Much like those who have ‘daddy issues’, Lucy is haunted by her failing relationships with her mother.