Preview

The Joy Luck Club, By Amy Tan

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
845 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Joy Luck Club, By Amy Tan
A Fine Line between all Hopes and Joy; a review of ethnic and cultural differences of “The Joy Luck Club”, by Amy Tan

This must be one of the most deep and heart-warming tale about four Chinese women and their daughters. Four generations of stories from eight different perspectives, experiencing ethnic and racial differences, in pre revolutionary China and decades later, in America, where their daughters are all grown up.

Abandoned, repressed and separated from their loved ones, and unable to forget about their past, Suyan, Lindo An-Mei and Ying Ying, were brought together at a church in San Francisco, eventually creating The Joy Luck Club.

The four of them gathered together each week, and played board hoping they’d be lucky. That kind
…show more content…
Suyan had always hoped that her wish would be fulfilled someday; she had not given up, nor would she ever. Not even death would prevent her from finding her twin-daughters; she always kept trying to find them. Suyan shared her stories about her life in China, with her friends, but before she left this world, she wanted to make sure that her daughter, Jing – Mei knew the truth as well. An- Mei, Ying-Ying and Lindo, knew what this meant and decided to take this matter into their own hands and also help Jing-Mei, to find her sisters.

I believe that the swan feather, Suyan brought with her from China, would be the symbol of this club. Unlike any other token, this one was significant to her, a remembrance of a promise she made to herself, a feather that comes from a far off place and carried all her good
…show more content…
After that a series of events from the past and the future are told, one from a mothers view and the other from the daughters. Amy Tan, author of the book, begins to tell the story firstly from a past view of a mother’s experience, before writing from a daughter’s view of her present life, in San Francisco. One has to know of the past to understand the present.

All of the mothers where immigrants, all left a part of them in China, a apart of their spirit, their innocence, joy, and hope when they left, all heartbroken inside. Well settled in San Francisco, they try to teach their daughters the values of Chinese culture and tradition. Hoping that they shall live better lives than they did in China. Hoping the best for their beloved daughters. From the daughters point of view, they see that hope as expectations, a goal their mothers set up for them to reach.

Like Lindo, who was the proudest and most competitive of the four elderly friends, was walking around Chinatown and dragging her daughter with her. She kept telling everyone about her genius daughter Waverly, bumping into one person to the other, that she was the best and the youngest female chess-player, who also featured in Time

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Joy Luck Club is focused on four Chinese Immigrant families in San Francisco and about their sacrifices for coming into the United States. Each family tells their own story. The story of the Hsu family with An-Mei as the daughter The purpose of the Joy Luck Club is to show the reader that people to reach their dream they have to make sacrifices and that their choices can change their fate.…

    • 375 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Amy Tan, the author of the book, had a very unique and distinct writing style throughout the book. The distinct thing that she did was make each chapter unique in the fact that they all took place from a different character’s point of view, and they also took place at different times. She also did not write the book to be in chronological order. This allows some questions to be raised that would have already been answered and known to the reader in most stories. Amy Tan also utilized many distinctive adjectives that feel the overall chinese feel of the book. She also utilized many chinese saying and proverbs such as “If you are greedy, what is inside you is what makes you always hungry” (Tan 18). Overall the style with which The Joy Luck Club was written gave it a very…

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The essay Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, by the recognized lawyer and author, Amy Chua, is an essay that as the title might suggest, talks about why the Chinese way of raising children is an improved and preferable way of parenting compared to the “Western” style. Daughter of two successful and very strict Chinese immigrants to the United States, Chua herself was raised under the severe stereotypical Chinese way of parenting. She earned her credibility, and the “right” to talk about this subject by demonstrating that in fact, being raised under a strict Chinese way of parenting tends to pay off. Not only did she become successful herself, but Mrs. Chua has raised two outstanding daughters, Louisa who is currently studying History at Harvard College, and Sophia who graduated in 2015 and is currently attending Yale Law School.…

    • 558 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The novel The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, centers on the interconnected story lines of four immigrant Chinese-American mothers and their now grown, adult daughters. The mothers meet every month to play Mahjong and enjoy Chinese delicacies in their social group, the ‘Joy Luck Club’. When Jing-Mei “June” Woo’s mother Suyan Woo dies, June takes her mother’s place at the meetings. At June’s first meeting, the older women tell her stories about the past in China and lament the barriers between…

    • 277 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The novel opens after the death of Suyuan Woo, an elderly Chinese woman and the founding member of the Joy Luck Club. She has died without fulfilling her “long-cherish wish”: to be untied with her twin daughters who were lost in China. At the first meeting, her daughter Jing-Mei learns that her long-lost half sisters is in China. Her aunties told her that she needs to fulfill her mother’s wish by going to China and tell her half sisters about the mother she has been living with her whole life.…

    • 816 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lindo Jong is a member of the Joy Luck Club along with Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, and Ying-ying St. Clair. Lindo Jong is a mother to three children, a divorcee, and a wife to a second husband. She grew up in China, and even though her children are American, she wants them to have some Chinese character also. Lindo's character encompasses three major traits including cleverness, being controlling, and loving.…

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Joy Luck Club

    • 1529 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Cultural divides are difficult to overcome in storytelling because understanding another culture is a not an easy task. However, in The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan does a wonderful job of making the Chinese culture comprehensible for the American reader. With a culture that is exceedingly different from American way of life, Tan presents both cultures side by side in order to draw attention to their differences and benefits. She acknowledges the materialistic American mind that is focused on the present and contrasts it with the Chinese mindset, which focuses on the past and future. After presenting both cultures, the book documents the daughters’ return to both their…

    • 1529 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Joy Luck Club” was written by Amy Tan, an important novel that shows the love and hardship mothers from a chinese culture bring. The book had all started in 1949, where four chinese immigrants had recently moved to San Francisco because of a war, where the joy luck club had all begun. Three main points in the story would have to be how important mothers should be to families, that winning is not everything, and also that one can never judge people’s experiences in life if one did not live it with them. The point of the joy luck club is to serve a purpose that mostly everyone should understand and know in life. Think about the thought of one day waking up and realizing that a particular mother is no longer by their daughters side anymore…

    • 892 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Suyuan Woo: Jing- mei’s mother, played a major role in this book. Initially you can tell she is very strict, secretive, stern but also very loving. She was shown secretive by keeping her first marriage a secret and two daughters she had in Kwelin. She also was very stern with Jing by sending her off at a young age to get married, then her mother stated” Obey your family. Do not disgrace us”. Despite all the negative traits portrayed, Sugyan is a caring person. When her mother was dying she cut her own flesh to put in a soup to cure her.…

    • 371 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Joy Luck Club

    • 609 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Joy Luck Club presents the stories of four Chinese immigrant women and their American-born daughters. All of their lives, the Chinese mothers in The Joy Luck Club have struggled to make their own decisions and establish their own identities in a culture where obedience and conformity are expected. For example, when Suyuan Woo is a refugee during the Japanese invasion, she decides that she will not be a passive victim and will choose her own happiness. She forms the Joy Luck Club to provide a distraction for herself and her friends. Thus, in a situation where there appears to be no room for disobedience, Suyuan creates an identity that she and her friends assume in order to survive. The continuation of the club in the United States helps Suyuan and her friends redefine themselves in a new culture.…

    • 609 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Joy Luck Club

    • 2016 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Amy Tan's novel The Joy Luck Club is a story of a monthly mah-jong gathering whose members consists of four Chinese mothers with American-born daughters. The novel is narrated by the four mothers and their daughters. At these meetings, the mothers share their concern of the growing rift between their daughters and Chinese customs. Each mother shares her story of her life in China and each daughter tells her story about her life in America. In The Joy Luck Club, the consistent conflict is formulated from the cultural and ideological clash between the mothers and daughters. Tensions arise out of the struggle to adapt to the American way of life when old customs are expected to be honored. Communications between both sides are limited, and from this, they all struggle with the expectations that they have for each other. Amy Tan's novel provides the reader the perspectives from two vastly different worlds - the conflicts the mothers faced and how the Chinese values conflict with American values in the lives of the daughters.…

    • 2016 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Joy Luck Club

    • 1503 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The mothers are used to their Chinese way of living style, and keep the Chinese culture even though they have moved to America but their American born daughters do not totally understand what those Chinese heritages are. And this culture differences was apparent throughout the novel. After reading The Joy Luck…

    • 1503 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Summary of the chapters...

    • 1998 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In this chapter we are introduced to the Joy Luck Club which originated all the way back in China when Jing-Mei Woo 's mother Suyuan was in the city of Kweilin. At the Joy Luck Club a group of old Chinese women sit around and eat and after that they sit down in a table to play a friendly game of Mah-Jong. At the Joy Luck Club there are 4 major members, Lindo Jong, Ying-ying St. Clair, An-Mei Hsu, and Suyuan Woo. In the beginning of the chapter we learn that Suyuan has died and Canning Woo, Jing-Mei 's father and Suyuan 's husband has asked Jing-Mei to take her mothers place at the Mah-Jong meeting. In this chapter we learn of how Suyuan had lived in China and during the war as the Japanese were slowly invading China, she had to take her family and leave for the city of Kweilin while her husband, Suyuan 's first husband that is, goes off to Chunking to fight the Japanese. In this chapter we learn about the other Mah Jong players, Lindo Jong, mother of the young girl Waverly, Ying-ying, a woman married to a white man and An-Mei Hsu. In the end of the chapter they old ladies tell Jing-Mei how they have contacted her long lost sisters and they want to send her to China to meet them.…

    • 1998 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Joy Luck

    • 3403 Words
    • 14 Pages

    Is it fair to judge someone by their sex? In traditional Chinese culture, many judgments were made about a person just by observing their sex. The women was ...takes and examine where he feels at home. In what way is a man's true character hidden from view?' " (Confucius, in Lau, 64) Amy Tan weaves many elements of Taoism and Confucianism into the subtle fabric of The Joy Luck Club. A reading of the text with attention to the way these two sacred systems interact between each mother and daughter offers a unique way to make sense of her group of loosely linked stories and ambiguous resolutions. Taoism…

    • 3403 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    From Chua’s memoir “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”, it is important to understand that Chua’s views are only representative of a small portion of Chinese people, and perhaps it doesn’t represent the values of Chinese people living in China or Hong Kong as much as they represent the values of Chinese-Americans due to different experiences of Chinese culture. Whether she intended to or not, Amy Chua’s memoir has reinforced stereotypes about Chinese people. Writers should take responsibility of their portrayal of social groups, and be aware of the negative impacts of using stereotypes to promote their own…

    • 994 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays