Mothers and the Chinese Spirit in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck...

Mothers and the Chinese Spirit in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club The Joy Luck Club is the telling of a tale of struggle by four mothers and their four daughters trying to understand the issue of gender identity, how they each discover or lose their sense of self and what they mean to one another. Throughout the book each of the mothers works hard at teaching their daughters the virtues of Chinese wisdom while allowing the opportunities of American life. They try passing on a piece of themselves despite the great barriers that are built between the women. Each of the stories gives a wonderful glimpse into the Chinese culture and heritage that the mothers are trying to reveal to their daughters through the use of festivals, food dishes,†¦show more content†¦Each one of these Chinese-American mothers is subjected to the predestined gender roles, and each one responded differently. How they respond determines how they relate to others, their sense of self and what they hope to teach their daughters who they see are going through the same expe riences. Amy Tan goes into great detail to describe these womens sense of self and the circumstances behind it. Ying-Ying is an example. She began life with a great self- esteem and slowly transformed into a ghost with no self at all. She deteriorated from a wild, adventurous Tiger woman to a quiet, conservative Dragon. She says of herself and her daughter that, We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing, unheard and not hearing, unknown by other (Tan 64). Ying-Ying was born with a Tiger spirit who possessed two ways, black and gold. The gold leaps with its fierce heart. The black side stands still with cunning, hiding its gold between trees, seeing and not being seen, waiting patiently for things to come (Tan 282). Ying-Ying allowed a bad husband to steal away her spirit and leave her abandoned. I became a stranger to myself (Tan 280). After leaving her first husbands house and returning home, she abandoned herself to whatever life offered her. SheShow MoreRelated Mother and Daughter Relationships in Joy Luck Club and A Hundred Secret Senses1679 Words   |  7 PagesMother and Daughter Relationships in The Joy Luck Club and A Hundred Secret Senses   Ã‚  Ã‚   In life, many things can be taken for granted - especially the things that mean the most to you. You just might not realize it until youve lost it all. As I walk down the road finishing up my teenage days, I slowly have been finding a better understanding of my mother. The kind of bond that mothers and daughters have is beyond hard to describe. Its probably the biggest rollercoaster ride of emotions thatRead MoreThe Joy Luck Club By Amy Tan1192 Words   |  5 Pages(H) The life of women has drastically changed throughout the ages. (CIS) The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan portrays life in America and in China in the 1930’s for women. 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She said, â€Å"‘I remember that starting at the age of six, I had thoughts of suicide†¦The fact that I had those thoughts when I was very young was an indication that I was a very gloomy kid. I had some ways of thinking that were not healthy,’† (â€Å"Interview† 2). Her thoughts of wanting to disappear from the world were due to her roots, which were planted in a miserable family history, a hard, strictRead MoreThe Joy Luck Club Characterization1301 Words   |  6 Pagesis a widely-used literary tool in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. Specifically, each mother and daughter is a round character that undergoes change throughout the novel. Characterization is important in the novel because it directly supports the central theme of the mother-daughter relationship, which was relevant in Tan’s life. Tan grew up with an immigrant mother, and Tan expresses the difficulties in communication and culture in the stories in her book. All mothers in the book are immigrants to America