Joy Luck Club Mother Daughter Relationship

The Novel “The Joy Luck Club” written by Amy Tan, is a story about how Chinese women were treated in China, and what lessons they learned about themselves and others. Due to the many cultural difference in China, these mothers have much experience with the way women were treated and have gained much wisdom as they grow older, and as the story goes the elderly mothers help their daughters with problems relating to marriage as they tell their stories and experiences that they went through in China both as a child and adult, so they can help their daughters make better decisions for themselves. ` When the daughters of Lindo Jong and An-Mei were kids, their mothers were best friends and also great competitors, so they had used their children as their chess pieces in their game. An-Mei’s daughter was named Rose, and she was an excellent piano player. Lindo’s daughter was named Waverly, and she was an excellent chess champion.

Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club and Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom both share a common concept, the relationship between mother and daughter. Although the themes are the same, the tones are completely different. The tone in Tan’s The Joy Luck Club has a very aggressive, belligerent feel towards it, while Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom gives off a calming disagreement that may easily be resolved.

and Lena ends by saying in her head “ And it’s such a simple question.” (165) . I feel as if Lena’s story, like all the others, gets left unfinished and I wish the author would’ve wrote the specific girls story all at once and not periodically. The book then jumps to Waverly’s story and expects the reader to remember what kind of relationship her and her mother have.

Joy Luck Club Final Essay Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club shows the reader the oppression Chinese women in the 1930s faced. Women in China during the 1930s were taught to be submissive and to swallow their own anguish but yet to be strong willed, within the home, and raise their children right. Many women though had no rights outside the home and were prosecuted or shunned if they had disregarded these beliefs.

The relationships between the mothers and daughters in both Amy Chua’s memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom and Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club differ in their own ways. In Chua’s memoir we can see that the story is in her point of view as a mother who is raising her daughter Lulu to play the violin. In Tan’s novel she is a child of a strict mother who forces her to play the piano. The different interactions between the mother and daughter in these two excerpt allow us to see the full relationship between them.

“I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I am not” (Tan, 1989) with this declaration she decided to change her mother’s view of her, and that of anyone else her mother. I think that this is the critical moment that she decided that she will be more of an American child then a Chinese one. Jing-Mei would passively defy her mother by answering her mother’s questions without enthusiasm. This slowly changed her mother’s perception of her, to a short tempered, lazy kid.

Like Lena Younger, she too becomes an emotional mother fiercely protective of her own flesh and blood. Hiram tries to ask her for his forgiveness and points out that he had nothing to do with

This peculiarly specific list showed that as a first-generation American, she was constantly scrutinizing the small actions that her mother demonstrated, and she was embarrassed, although it is not likely anyone else ever noticed. However, as she got older, Jing-Mei realized the fact that she was “becoming Chinese.” She still did not truly understand her mother or the beauty of Chinese culture, but her acceptance was the first step of the long excursion of

As a child growing up in an Asian household, I shared many of the same experiences that Jing-mei had: being compared with others, forced to study and play the piano against my will - the typical experiences of an Asian child with strict and imposing parents. Likewise, I often tried to whine my way out of unfavourable situations, in hopes of avoiding the task forever. In retrospect, I realize the foolishness of my younger self and I understand the kind-hearted intentions of my parents’ actions, which is what Jing-mei ultimately failed to do. Drawing from my experiences, I believe that Jing-mei should have attempted to mend the tensions between them by apologizing and having an honest and sincere conversation with her mother about things moving forward.

She is clear- headed of what she wants. Although Lena is a woman of the 1950s, she is progressive. With the insurance money she received, she decides to buy a house in a white neighbourhood because she wants a better life for her family. Such a masculine personality in Mama comes from her experience to true oppression – slavery. Mama says that Walter is a “disgrace to [his] father’s memory” as she challenges Walter to fulfil his moral duty to succeed his father.

The topic of family comes up more than anything else in the story. Lena Younger (Claudia McNeil) is a character that constantly tries to enforce these values into the rest of the household while keeping them from breaking apart. For example, she went on to buy a new house because she believed it would benefit her family the most and lead them into a better, happier future. She said, “I seen my family falling apart today. Falling to pieces in front of my eyes.

This can be contrasted with the relationship between Ying-Ying and Lena, which is one aspect of and also what lead to, the many things that shape Lena’s identity, including

The Joy Luck Club The Joy Luck Club written by Amy Tan, dives into the lives of three Chinese mothers and their daughters. Each of which, tells a story from their past and/or present. Sharing with the reader the difficulties that they have gone and/or going through. The story starts off with the character Jing-Mei Woo telling the reader about her mother, Suyuan Woon, whom had just passed away. Suyuan Woo was an emigrant from China to America whom started an organization where her and her closest friends, also Chinese emigrants, come together once each week to eat and play an old game of Mahjong.

Along with being very helpful when it comes to her family Lena is also considerate in certain ways. Which include putting her children 's needs before her own. The Younger family have always been scarce on resources, especially money. While Mama is waiting for that big check that the whole family is waiting on she knows already that she is going to buy a house for them to live in. Once Mama buys the house she has always wanted she then realizes that her children could make use of this money.

Her mother continuously pesters her to become a prodigy, or as Jing Mei believes, someone who she is not. These arguments soon lead to the downfall of Jing Mei in the present and in the future. Although it seems that the story shows the clash of cultures between mother and daughter, a closer look into the story shows that it is Jing Mei’s mother’s ambitions and love for her daughter that bring Jing Mei’s downfall.