Suyuan's Journey

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Suyuan’s Journey According to mythologist Joseph Campbell, “A hero is someone who has given his life to something bigger than himself,” (Campbell 1). To become a hero, one must set off on what is called a Hero’s Journey. This starts with the departure, when the future hero has something taken away from them. The next stage is the fulfillment, in which the person faces a series of trials and goes through a transformation. The final stage is the return, in which the person regains what has been lost and passes a boon on to someone else. In Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club, four Chinese mothers undergo the journey to become a hero. One of these mothers is Suyuan Woo. She is thrust into the journey when she loses her twin babies on a roadside. Her fulfillment is when she raises another daughter, June, in America, while still never giving up on finding the lost babies. She finally completes her journey when she gives June a jade pendant which shows her life’s importance. This then gives June the strength after Suyuan dies to travel to China to reunite with her long lost sisters. Therefore, in Joseph Campbell’s eyes, Suyuan is truly a hero. Suyuan’s journey begins in China during the time that the Japanese were invading. She flees from Kweilin to try to reach Chungking, where her husband, who was an officer, was stationed. She walks on for days, miserable with dysentery and fever, while gradually abandoning her worthwhile possessions until she is left with just her twin babies in slings. Finally, she reaches her limit. As June’s father, Canning, tells her the story of her mother, he says, “Finally, there was not one more step left in her body. She didn’t have the strength to carry those babies any farther. She slumped to the ground. She knew she would die…,” (Tan 282). Not allowing herself to die next to her babies, she resolves to leave them behind at the roadside
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