The Joy Luck Club presents stories about four Chinese-immigrant women and their daughters. Each of the women views the world differently and they try to share their visions with their daughters, hoping that their relationships with their daughters is just as strong as what they had with their own mothers. One of the mothers, Suyuan Woo, forms a club in China called the Joy Luck Club in order to distract her friends from their problems during the Japanese invasion during World War II. She moves to San Francisco in 1947 after losing all of her family during the war, including her twin daughters. She has a daughter named Jing-mei and starts another Joy Luck Club with three other women.
Abuzar Turabi Mrs. Kira Rensch AP Language and Composition 16 May 2014 Character Analysis of Jing-Mei Woo Jing-Mei Woo is the narrator and the position of her story makes her seem to be the primary character of the novel “The Joy Luck Club”. At the end of the book, Jing-Mei Woo fully understands her mother and her Chinese heritage, and she travels to back to China to accomplish her deceased mother’s dream by taking over mahjong table in Joy Luck club. Even though “ we would actually argue that Jing-mei develops the least personally.”(Shmoop), Among all the daughters in the novel, Jing-Mei is the one who fully and truly realizes her individuality, for she preserves her Chinese values along with her American character by “serving as a bridge” (SparksNotes) between the two different cultures. In the first chapter, Jing-Mei Woo’s father asks her to “be the fourth corner at Joy Luck club” (Tan, 5) because her mother had recently passed away. She then goes to the Hsus' house which felt, “heavy with greasy odors.” (Tan 15) She acts very courteous to everyone and respects the wishes of her elders as displayed when she accepts to take her mother’s place at the mahjong table.
TOP CHARACTERS 1. Jing-mei (June) Woo In a way, Jing-mei Woo is the main character of The Joy Luck Club. Structurally, her narratives serve as bridges between the two generations of storytellers, as Jing-mei speaks both for herself and for her recently deceased mother, Suyuan. Jing-mei also bridges America and China. When she travels to China, she discovers the Chinese essence within herself, thus realizing a deep connection to her mother that she had always ignored.
Aunt Baba had cared for Adeline since she was two weeks old, when her mother died. Adeline always asked to see pictures of her mother but Aunt Baba had no pictures her. Adeline learned years later that her father had ordered all pictures of her mother destroyed. Chinese Cinderella Topics for Discussion • How old was Adeline when her mother died? Why did some of her older siblings blame Adeline for their mother's death?
This book had me intrigued, no enthralled, in Kingston’s ability to capture the viewpoint of not just any person’s life, but her own. Kingston gives new meaning to the saying, “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.” The five stories that make up this masterpiece touch different parts and lives of the Chinese culture. The first being the untold story of the “No Name Woman.” Kingston learns of her aunt, who may as well never existed, who betrayed her family and brought dishonor to their name. Accused of adultery, she is driven out of the village and commits suicide because of the disgrace she has brought. Brave Orchid, Kingston’s mother, sets this as an example of what not to be in life.
She told many stories about her own life. She told her about leaving two daughters behind in China (Kramer 52); this story is told in the first chapter of The Joy Luck Club. As every child, Tan’s mother told her fairy tales. Tan’s mother told her the story
The Joy Luck Club, is a touching, funny, sad, insightful, and artfully constructed group portrait of four mother-daughter relationships that endure not only a generation gap, but the more unbridgeable gap between two cultures. Skip to next paragraph External Links • Visit book editor Marjorie Kehe's Fan page (Facebook.com) The Joy Luck Club is an informal "institution'' started by Suyuan Woo upon her arrival in San Francisco in 1949. Suyuan finds three other Chinese immigrant women to play mah jongg, cook and consume special foods, tell stories, gossip, invest in stocks, and plan for joy and luck. In the years that follow, the club links the four families, enabling them to pool resources and keeping them in touch with their past as they take on the challenges of adjusting to a new country. Nearly 40 years after the first meeting, as the novel opens, Suyuan Woo has died and her place at the mah jongg table is assumed by her 36-year-old daughter, Jing-mei.
The culture not only affects their relationships, but the decisions they make along their journey and their resolve. Culture first of all, is probably the most important concept that Amy Tan focuses on during The Joy Luck Club. Take this exemplary quotation, “Five months ago, after a crab dinner celebration Chinese New Year, my mother gave me my “life’s importance,” a jade pendant on a gold chain.” (197) June’s mother (Suyaun) bestows the name “life’s importance” for the pendant to her daughter. June does not appreciate it saying that she “forgot about it.”, missing the entire point her mother was trying to show her. This shows the cultural differences (i.e.
Velez2 Jennifer Velez Comp107 Miss Atzeni 3/22/2012 The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl By Elizabeth Wong In Elizabeth Wong’s writing on how she struggled to be an “All-American” girl, she expresses the strict religion and culture brought on by her single-parent raising mother, when all she only wanted was to fit in with American culture. While Elizabeth and her brother wanted to play childhood games, such as ghost hunt, with their friends their mother was stern on the importance of learning the language of their heritage. She would walk them seven long blocks to Chinese school, no matter how often they pleaded with her to not attend. Elizabeth wasn’t fond of the smell of the school or that the learning was restricted. She felt that American school would be a better fit for her.
In the book, Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, a story is told about four mothers and four daughters. Each mother was born in China, and each daughter in America. Throughout the novel, Amy Tan repeatedly uses symbols and symbolism to represent what is going on in the mothers and daughters lives. A vase, a jade pendent, and a bible are all symbols that the author used to represent some aspect of both the daughters and their mothers lives. Lena St. Claire’s mother, Ying-ying, married a white businessman and brought her from China to America.