Joy Luck Club Thesis

From trading pieces of candy for chess pieces, to playing in local tournaments, she transforms into a proficient chess player. Her skills were unmatched in her early years, and she was quickly seen as the first female Grandmaster at the age of twelve. This is her departure from what would appear to be a “normal” life. Furthermore, she meets a mentor, Lau Po, and improves at playing chess. This mirrors the Hero’s Journey, in how both a Hero, and Waverly, must traverse through calls of action, meet a mentor, and transform.

It consisted of sixteen related stories about the experiences of four Chinese-American mother-daughter pairs. According to Dong in Reading Amy Tan, “Daisy’s tragic experiences directly inspired the stories of the characters An-mei Hsu and Suyuan Woo in The Joy Luck Club” (Dong 3). The character Suyuan Woo in The Joy Luck Club was a woman who was born into a wealthy family, married an officer in the army, and gives birth to twin girls; she later lost this family during the Sino-Japanese war. Suyuan narrated, “The man who was my husband brought me and our two babies to Kweilin because he thought we would be safe. He was an officer with the Kuomintang” (Tan 21).

Kai Foote Martinez Sophomore Honors English 25 January 2023 The Sacrifices That Come with Love in The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan ’s novel The Joy Luck Club is about the hardships of relationships with different cultural beliefs and expectations and how they influence people. There are numerous examples of the hardships and sacrifices that mothers make for their children; these sacrifices teach and influence all the daughters to help them have a better understanding of the world and their expectations.

Jing-Mei was then shocked when she learns some history about her mother leaving behind two young daughters in China. Because of the incident, Jing-mei thought to take care of the situation even though she doesn’t understand the suffer of Suyuan. After the death of Jing-Mei's mother, she learns about the sufferings of her mother when she was in China from the women in the club and her father. This knowledge helps her to appreciate Suyuan for what she has done for her. However, it mainly teaches her to get used to her Chinese heritage like when she went to China to meet the twins when they have been found and she then share Suyuan’s story with them.

Suyuan’s American Dream starts in her heart when she decides to escape from the chaotic China and find a better life by immigrating to America. However, she loses her two babies on the way to Chungking. American Dream means different things for different people. Suyuan has fulfilled her American Dream in a certain degree by trying to provide her daughters with successful, blissful and better lives. First of all, Suyuan left Kweilin for Chungking in order to find her husband and avoid the Japanese.

As time goes on, whenever Waverly want to play chess again, Lindo says “No, it is not so easy anymore”. Since then, Waverly stopped winning. Lena became vulnerable as her mother was incapable of helping her to become a balanced adult. Lena is unable to tell her husband she is not content with her roll in their firm and has a silenced role in their marriage due to her childhood experience. Ying-Ying her mother acted passively toward her because she couldn’t tell her the truth about her past life in china.

Another major consequence of the Opium Wars and ensuing trade that can be observed in the lives of the Chinese-Americans of The Joy Luck Club is the consumption of the opium itself and how over time it became integrated into Chinese culture. How Opium Made the World Go Round mentions that at first, opium consumption wasn’t a big deal because it was too expensive for recreational use, only being available for the rich. However, in 1818 a cheaper manufacturing process was discovered and by 1839 enough opium for eighteen million Chinese consumers was being imported (Pomeranz 102). Over time, more and more Chinese citizens began to use opium until it became commonplace in Chinese restaurants and by 1900 over forty million were addicted to the

When the story was told from Jing-mei’s perspective, Suyuan seemed like a selfish mother but when Suyuan’s story was told from Jing-mei’s father’s perspective, we saw the reality of Suyuan’s sacrifice. Another example of is when she takes on an extra job so that Jing-mei could take piano classes. After Suyuan had passed away, Jing-mei reminisced about her past and told her story of when she was 9. Her mother had wanted her to be a prodigy. When Suyuan saw a piano prodigy on TV, she called Jing-mei over and

“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.

Unlike Sojourner Truth, Qiu Jin in her except, Injustices to Chinese Women, was softer and more passive in term of language. Although the first half of Qiu Jin’s except also showed sorrow and sadness, it was not filled with anger like Truth’s except. The live of a Chinese woman back then was like a object, a “thing” instead of a human being. From being treated like a “useless thing” the moment they were born to being sold to different family as a wife in exchange for money for their family, Chinese women have no power in choosing their destiny. It is so sad to see how women have to be fit in with the traditional Chinese standard.

While the tone in Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom is one of frustration and tension from the point of view of the mother, Amy Chua; the tone in The Joy Luck Club is bitter and resentful from the point of view of Amy Tan as a child. In Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom, the mother, Amy Chua, is constantly concerned about her daughter's violin playing and is trying to give her feedback on how she can do better. Her daughter, Lulu, responds to the feedback with annoyance and discontent. The irony in this passage is due to the fact Amy Chua is trying to create a calming environment for Lulu even though she irritatingly screams “RELAX!” (Chua 47-48).

Comparison Application to Nonfiction A person’s identity is comprised of what they look like, how they act, how they speak, and where they are from. All of these attributes are directly affected by a person’s culture or country. Immigrants and the children of immigrants struggle with this more so than others who live in the country they were born in. In The Joy Luck Club all of the daughter’s in the story struggle with their identity as the child of an immigrant.

Marriage is what we picture as a lovely thing in which a couple is usually bonded by love and mutual support, but in The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan marriage is deemed a problem and a difficulty to the couples. The Joy Luck Club, written by Amy Tan, is about four ladies that are together to play Mah Jong. The ladies tell each other stories about their lives and it shapes the life of the youngest lady, Jin-Mei Woo, who is there because her mother, who was in the club, passed away. Amy Tan develops the theme of marriage in The Joy Luck Club using flashbacks. Marriage in Chinese culture is based on traditions.

Amy Tan’s “A Pair of Tickets” focuses on the character Jing-Mei on her path of self-discovery. The story follows Jing-Mei on her journey to China as she develops a deeper appreciation for her Chinese heritage and her deceased mother. The central conflict in Tan’s story is Jing-Mei’s struggle to understand the different elements of her culture. This realization comes to fruition through a series of steps which are also reflected in Jing-Mei herself. She begins the story by being ashamed of her heritage, but as the story progresses, she realizes how badly she longs to learn more about her Chinese self.

However, this determination sometimes appears to be obsessive to the point of running her daughter’s life for her. Regardless, she is only trying to help, as she encourages Jing Mei by asserting “‘You can be best anything.’” (1). Because of this, it suggests that although she is very harsh on her daughter at times, it is only to make sure that Jing Mei can use her full potential and not end up losing everything like her