Comparing The Joy Luck Club And The Hundred Secret Senses
Amy Tan’s novels all have many things in common; they are always about Chinese-American families and the difficulties they face while living in America, and The Joy Luck Club and The Hundred Secret Senses are no exception. Joy is a novel with sixteen vignettes, each one with a different story to tell about Chinese mothers and daughters and their experiences. Hundred is the story of two half-sisters, Olivia, a Chinese-American girl born in San Francisco, and Kwan, who was born and raised in a remote Chinese village. It frequently switches perspectives between the two protagonists and time frames, jumping back and forth between the present and the past. In The Joy Luck Club and The Hundred Secret Senses, Amy Tan utilizes the anecdotal-type stories within the main storyline in each novel in order to influence the
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It also speaks to things that are lost or forgotten, all of which are present in the chapters that follow. In the first chapter of Joy, Suyuan Woo’s story is told by her daughter Jing-Mei. While escaping China, Suyaan had to leave behind her twin baby girls (Tan, Joy 12), and because she was unable to communicate to her husband and daughter her tremendous loss, she was also unable to reunite with her long lost twin daughters. The story is remarkably similar to the prologue of the chapter, with the old woman also unable to express herself to her daughter. Jing-mei, when reflecting on the fact that she does not really know anything of significance about her mother, says that “[our mothers] are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America” (Tan, Joy 31). The metaphorical lost swan in the preface is not only the mothers’ fear that they will be forgotten by their daughters, but also their fear that Chinese culture and traditions will also be forgotten and ignored by their
It also speaks to things that are lost or forgotten, all of which are present in the chapters that follow. In the first chapter of Joy, Suyuan Woo’s story is told by her daughter Jing-Mei. While escaping China, Suyaan had to leave behind her twin baby girls (Tan, Joy 12), and because she was unable to communicate to her husband and daughter her tremendous loss, she was also unable to reunite with her long lost twin daughters. The story is remarkably similar to the prologue of the chapter, with the old woman also unable to express herself to her daughter. Jing-mei, when reflecting on the fact that she does not really know anything of significance about her mother, says that “[our mothers] are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America” (Tan, Joy 31). The metaphorical lost swan in the preface is not only the mothers’ fear that they will be forgotten by their daughters, but also their fear that Chinese culture and traditions will also be forgotten and ignored by their