A Choices and Consequences
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.
The mothers want their daughters to take charge of their own lives, too. Yet, the mothers find it difficult to voice their concerns and be open enough about their personal experiences to make their advice valid with their daughters. Ying-Ying St. Clair, however, sees her daughter Lena’s unhappiness in her marriage and courageously faces her own bad memories to help Lena make the decisions she needs to make to be free.
B Identity
The American-born daughters have their own choices to make and their own identities to establish. While their mothers want Chinese obedience from their daughters, they do not want their daughters to be too passive. The Chinese mothers want their daughters to have American-like strength. The daughters work to find compromises their mothers can accept. Rose Hsu Jordan, for example, overcomes her passivity with the help of her grandmother’s story and stands up to a husband who is trying to take everything from her.
Throughout the stories presented in The Joy Luck Club runs the common thread of mother-daughter connectedness and its influence on a daughter’s identity formation. Tan’s portrayal of the intense relationships between and among her Characters shows the strength of the ties that bind culture and generation. These firmly undergird the choices the Characters make and the identities they shape as a result of their decisions.
C Culture Clash
The American-born daughters are ambivalent about their Chinese background. While they eat Chinese foods and celebrate Chinese traditions, they want their Chinese heritage to remain at home. They make American choices when they are in public and cringe in embarrassment when their mothers speak in their broken English. Worst of all, the American daughters do not see the importance of “joy luck”; to them, it is not even a word. They regard the Joy Luck Club as a “shameful Chinese custom.”
The Chinese mothers fear the end of Chinese tradition in their families. Their American-born daughters hide their Chinese heritage and think like Americans. While the Chinese mothers want their daughters to enjoy the benefits of being Americans, they do not want them to forget their roots. They hope that their daughters will develop strong American Characters yet keep positive Chinese beliefs alive. The mothers need the daughters to understand the significance of the Joy Luck Club and all that it represents.
The clash of adolescence with the American and Chinese cultures leaves the Chinese mothers without hope for their daughters’ Chinese futures. Yet, time works its magic; the daughters grow up, and the mothers’ dreams prevail. The Joy Luck Club survives with a daughter, Jing-Mei, continuing the tradition in place of her deceased mother, Suyan Woo. Broken ties mend, and hope for happiness despite misfortune (what the Chinese call “joy luck”) lives.
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