Deception In The Joy Luck Club

Mother knows best. And yet so many daughters in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club feel slighted by what the matriarchal figures in their lives have in mind for them, or rather, what they believe their mothers have in mind for them. A perfect storm of expectation, true and false, about love, about success, about being Chinese. The souring of mother-daughter relationships in The Joy Luck Club stem from unrealistic or ill conceived expectations that both parties hold for the other.

Joy Luck Club Passage Analysis (pg. 64) The book, The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan focuses on the complexity of mother-daughter relationships amongst immigrant and first generation families. Through the use of narrative and metaphor to convey Ying Ying St. Clair’s inner thoughts and the hurt and suffering she endures. Furthermore Tan’s style is easily recognizable to many mother’s and daughters because it captures their struggles to understand each other. In the passage, Tan uses narrative and description to explain the distance in the relationship between a mother and a daughter.

Research shows that up to 70% of people who have gone through something traumatic, have shown positive psychological growth in their lives (Gregoire). Life after trauma can be hard to regain due to the instability we experience throughout that hard time in our lives. But having a strong, and satisfying relationship or relationships can help to bring people to peace in a slightly more uncomplicated way. This example of dealing with grief is brought to attention in Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club. Due to the turbulent times in Shanghai, China, and then coming together in San Francisco, California, these four women and their daughters rely on each other to get through it all. Each conflict the characters go through, relates back to how they

For instance, her famous novel ‘The Joy Luck Club’ depicts the Chinese mother and her American daughter relationship where they go through various circumstances trying to understand each other including the evolvement that comes in their relationships as the daughters know more about their mother’s life stories. Secondly, Tan considers the theme of identity in terms of Chinese immigrants and their life experiences as an immigrant in the United States. She reveals how the children born to the immigrants strive in an environment which is a mixture of American and Chinese influence. Moreover, Tan is found to have explored identity issues through her fictive creations and tackled the issue of authorial identity (Becnel, 2010). Similarly, romantic love is another subject included in the literary artworks of Amy Tan which considers the relationships and romance an important aspect of human’s life.

Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club is an amazing representation of what Chinese immigrants and their families face. The broad spectrum of the mothers’ and daughters’ stories all connect back to a couple of constantly recurring patterns. These patterns are used to show that how the mothers and daughters were so differently raised affected their relationships with each other, for better and for worse.

Lost in Translation For first generation Americans, finding belonging in a new country can feel impossible. They are often caught between the traditions and ideals of the two differing countries. Raising a family in the new home with different values can lead to miscommunications or even a significant disconnect between parents and children. This is modeled well in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, particularly in the relationship between Ying Ying Saint Clair and her daughter Lena.

Amy Tan is one of the most famous multicultural authors in the world to this day. The Joy Luck Club, one of her most popular books, is highly influenced by her life. This book is about four Chinese women and the loss of culture transferred from them to their daughters. The book takes place in San Francisco and partially in China where the main character goes to find her half sisters. Just like the daughters in the book, Amy Tan has lost a lot of Chinese culture from her parents, who were born in China, to her and her brothers.

The story “Two Kinds” is from the book The Joy Luck Club. The story mainly focuses on the relationships between mothers and daughters. Internal conflict means that it is a conflict a character has with his or her self. Throughout every storyline there is either an internal or external conflict. Two Kind by Amy Tan has a variation of both. Both Jing-mei and her mother faces each form of conflict and they are revealed throughout the story.

In the beginning, the story shows an innocent crush between two young teenagers, and turns the main lesson into being proud of your family and your heritage. In Tan’s case, being Chinese helped her realize that her family is not something to be shameful of, although she was wanting to look and act more like a white American. Years after she got over her crush on Robert, she had realized that it was not worth to change herself for a boy, because she was embarrassed of her family. Many readers have taken the lesson as; Some things you would not understand when you are younger, make much more sense when you are

In her novel, The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan focuses on the fact that the bond between a mother and daughter can overcome any ethnic barrier. Despite there being many disagreements and arguments about the ways to live their lives, Tan defies this issue by creating a bond that is unbreakable even though the experienced different upbringings. Certain disagreements keep the novel interesting and create a conflict depicting the problems stemming from this barrier. Through her use of similes, metaphors, and flashbacks, Tan shows how the bond between a mother and daughter can withstand even the strongest cultural differences.

On the other hand, being born into this country, Jing-mei is against wanting to live up to the expectations her mother sets on her. Two kinds reveal two different sides of the cultural spectrum, and their opposing view towards their values. Jing-mei 's mother felt like an outcast existing in a dominate population. Grasping the same idea, she held onto her hard time back in her home. Jing-mei is her last hope to prove that her homeland can be just as talented as Americans.

Joseph Campbell's definition of a hero’s journey can be seen across many characters in the novel, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. In order to meet this definition, one must overcome three stages: the department, the fulfilment, and the return. Tan depicts Jing-mei Woo as a shell of a woman who is forced to take up the footprints of her late mother. She then learns the meaning of family and is able to fulfil her mother’s dying wish by resurrecting her past life in China, which allows her to complete Campbell's definition of a hero’s journey.

Bi, Zijian Thu. 3/5/2015 English 2B Ms. Freeland 2° WHEN THE DREAM COMES TRUE What is your American Dream? “The Joy Luck Club”, a novel by Amy Tan, talks about how four mother-daughter pairs have fulfilled their American Dreams. Suyuan and Jing-mei was one of the mother-daughter pair who wants to fulfill their dreams in America.

“Communication is the key to a successful relationship, attentiveness, and consistency. Without it, there is no relationship,” (Bleau). The Joy Luck Club is a novel written by Amy Tan. Set in the twentieth century, this novel depicts the life of four Chinese immigrant women escaping their past and their American-grown daughters. The novel reveals the mothers’ hardship-filled past and motivations alongside with the daughters’ inner conflicts and struggles.

Throughout the novel The Joy Luck Club, Jing-Mei Woo struggles with her sense of identity and belonging in a community as she is often embarrassed of her heritage, and prefers to live her life in the shadows. However, at the end of the book, Jin-mei finds peace when she seeks her roots and sisters in China. She finally finds her inner Chinese that she described is “in your blood waiting to be let go” (Tan 306). This shows that although immigrants of the time period often struggled with self identity, deep down they wanted to find acceptance in their