The Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club follows four Chinese immigrant women and their American-born daughters in San Francisco. The author, Amy Tan, examines the deep connection between these women and their daughters through 16 short stories. Emmaking 19:57, 19 April 2012 (MDT) Title: The Joy Luck Club

Author: Amy Tan

Date of Publication: 1989

Genre: Postmodern Novel



Author Biographical Information
Amy Tan was born in Oakland, California in 1952. When her older brother and father died from brain tumors in 1966, she moved with her mother and younger brother to Switzerland. She returned to the United States for college, attending Linfield College, San Jose City College, San Jose State University, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and the University of California at Berkeley. After college, Tan became a language development consultant and freelance writer. In 1985 she wrote a story called “Rules of the Game” which became the basis for her first novel. The Joy Luck Club became a New York Times bestseller, received a Los Angeles Times Book Award, and was translated into 25 languages. Tan also wrote The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, and two children’s books: The Moon Lady and The Chinese Siamese Cat. Amy Tan lives with her husband Lou DeMattei in San Francisco.

Setting: Historical Information
The setting of The Joy Luck Club has many shifts as the story is told from various points of view. The setting begins in China while the Kuomintang await a Japanese invasion of the Chinese borders. The setting goes from China to America as the mothers’ flashbacks from childhood take place in China, but their flashbacks from adulthood take place in America after they immigrate. The daughters’ flashbacks all take place in California, though Jing-Mei goes to China at the end of the novel.

Genre
Postmodern novels stretch away from the idea that man can achieve comprehension through reliance on reasoning. Postmodern novels contain components of playfulness with language, experimentation with point of view, experimentation with flashbacks and the present time, and a mixture of “high art” and popular culture.

Plot Summary
The Joy Luck Club is comprised of sixteen short stories about the lives of four Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-born daughters. The novel centers on Jing-mei Woo’s trip to China to meet her twin half-sisters, Chwun Yu and Chwun Hwa. Chwun Yu and Chwun Hwa did not immigrate to the U.S. with their mother, Suyuan, as she was forced to leave them on the roadside while escaping the Japanese attack of Kweilin during World War II. Jing-mei was born to a different father later on in America. Suyuan’s dream was to return to China and reunite with her first two daughters, but died before she got the chance. Jing-mei has taken Suyuan’s place in the Joy Luck Club: a weekly gathering her mother had organized in which she and Ying-Ying St. Clair, An-mei Hsu, and Lindo Jong ate dim sum, played mahjong, and talked. Ying-Ying, An-mei, and Lindo tell Jing-mei that right before Suyuan died, she had succeeded in finding the address of her lost daughters. The three women try to persuade Jing-mei to travel to China and tell her sister’s about Suyuan’s life. Jing-mei is hesitant as she isn’t sure she is capable of telling about her mother’s life. The other Joy Luck Club members worry that her misgivings may be reasonable and fear that their own daughters also may not fully appreciate the stories behind their mothers’ lives either. The book is divided into four main sections, each of which contains four narratives with different perspectives. In the first four stories of the novel, the mothers reminisce on their relationships with their own mothers and worry that their daughters’ memories of them will never hold the same strength. In the second set of stories, the daughters-Jing-mei, Waverly, Lena, and Rose-connect their childhood memories of their interactions with their mothers; the force with which they tell their stories proves their mothers’ worries somewhat unjustified. They believe that their mothers’ traditional Chinese beliefs do not relate to their own American lifestyles. In the fourth and final set of stories, each mother struggles to find solutions to support her daughter, while all learning about themselves in the process. Lindo discovers through her daughter Waverly that she has been forever changed by American culture. Ying-Ying recognizes that her daughter Lena has unknowingly followed her submissive example in her marriage. An-mei discovers that her daughter Rose never fully grasped the lessons she had intended to teach her about hope and faith. Although Jing-mei worries throughout the novel that she cannot fully fill her mother’s position in the Joy Luck Club, Suyuan’s story encompasses the book through Jing-mei when she speaks for Suyuan in the first and fourth sections, which are the mother’s sections of the novel. Suyuan’s story represents the struggle to preserve mother-daughter bonds through generational changes. When Jing-mei finally meets her half-sisters in China and tells them about their mother, she also forges new mother-daughter relationships. Her journey reconciles Suyuan’s two lives between Chinese and American culture and brings closure to her own and her mother’s stories. The journey also brings hope to the other Joy Luck Club members that they can resolve the differences in their own mother-daughter relationships. Emmaking 19:57, 19 April 2012 (MDT)

Characters

 * Jing-mei Woo - When Jing-mei takes her mother’s place in the Joy Luck Club, the other members give her money to go to China and meet her twin sisters to tell them their mother’s story. She worries that she isn’t up to the task.
 * Suyuan Woo - Founder of the Joy Luck Club. During her escape from a war-torn area of China, Suyuan lost her twin daughters. It was her life’s goal to reconnect with them, but she died before she could.
 * Lindo Jong - Lindo is a member of the Joy Luck Club who teaches “invisible strength” to her daughter, who becomes a chess prodigy. Lindo worries that she and her daughter are disconnected from their heritage.
 * Waverly Jong - Waverly was a child chess prodigy. She and Jing-mei were rivals, imposed largely by their competitive mothers. Waverly worries what her mother will think about her white fiancé, Rich.
 * An-mei Hsu - An-mei has learned lessons of the necessity of speaking up for herself but regretfully has not passed these on to her daughter. She loses most of her Christian faith when her youngest son drowns, but still secretly maintains some faith.
 * Rose Hsu-Jordan - Rose is an intelligent woman who lacks the courage to assert her opinion to her husband, who tries to divorce her. Her mother teaches her to have more inner strength and she stands up to her husband and refuses to sign the divorce papers.
 * Ying-Ying St. Clair - Ying-Ying lets her husband Clifford incorrectly speak for her and rarely speaks her mind. She tries to teach her daughter to not be passive.
 * Lena St. Clair - Lena has unwittingly followed her mother’s submissive example in her marriage and career, believing she is incapable of control.

Author's Style
(Page 78, Ying-Ying St. Clair’s Point of View) Amy Tan uses both concrete and figurative language to create a deep understanding of the novel for the reader. The author uses imagery such as “The sharp water…made me thrash even harder.” This makes the novel come to life for the reader. She uses simile to create a stronger understanding of Ying-Ying’s emotions during this section of the novel, such as when she says the water “was like weightless sleep”. Emmaking 19:57, 19 April 2012 (MDT)
 * “I was surprised by the cool comfort of the water, so that at first I was not frightened. It was like weightless sleep. And I expected Amah to come immediately and pick me up. But in the instant I began to choke, I knew she would not come. The sharp water had swum up my nose, into my throat and eyes, and this made me thrash even harder.”

Setting
The setting of The Joy Luck Club shifts several times as the story is told from numerous perspectives. The novel begins in China when the Kuomintang are awaiting a Japanese invasion of the Chinese borders. The setting moves from China to America as the mothers’ flashbacks from childhood occur in China, but their flashbacks from adulthood happen after they immigrate to America. The daughters’ flashbacks all take place in California, though Jing-Mei goes to China towards the end of the novel.

Themes

 * One possible theme of The Joy Luck Club is how cultural differences can cause misunderstandings. Throughout the novel, the narrators contemplate their misunderstandings with their mothers/daughters. Incomplete knowledge of their mother or daughter’s first language creates a barrier and miscommunication in their mother-daughter relationships. The mothers feel that their daughters don’t care about their Chinese heritage and the daughters feel that their mothers’ Chinese traditions are silly.
 * Another possible theme of The Joy Luck Club is the power of storytelling. The mothers tell stories in order to inform the daughters of their heritage, teach them life lessons, and connect with them. Ying-Ying tells Lena stories of her own passivity so that Lena will not follow the same path. The mothers tell stories of their lives in China so that their daughters’ will know their heritage and remember who their mothers were to pass the stories on for generations. The stories the mothers and daughters both told were used to control their fates. For example, Lindo believes that her daughter Waverly’s crooked nose is a sign of an ill fate, so Waverly changes her fate by reinventing the story of a crooked nose.
 * A third possible theme of The Joy Luck Club is that people often do not know what they have until it is gone. Jing-mei didn’t always feel like she communicated well with her mother, Suyuan, when she was alive, but after Suyuan passes away, she finds herself missing her mother deeply. She takes Suyuan’s place in the Joy Luck Club at first as an obligation, but later feels more connected to her mother through the stories told there. Emmaking 19:38, 25 April 2012 (MDT)

Motifs

 * One motif in The Joy Luck Club is control over one's fate. Throughout the novel, each main character struggles between shaping their own fate in America and their Chinese heritage.
 * Another motif in The Joy Luck Club is sexism. In the novel, more than one main character has a failed relationship or marriage because her husband does not listen to her input or regard her part in the marriage as important.
 * A third motif in The Joy Luck Club is sacrifices for loved ones. The mothers and daughters make sacrifices for their mothers' and daughters' love. An-mei superstitiously cuts off part of her arm in hopes that it will heal her ill mother. Suyuan takes another job cleaning a home with a piano so her daughter can learn to play.

Symbols

 * Suyuan’s pendant is a symbol of cultural differences as Jing-Mei finds the pendant her mother gave her unstylish. It later comes to represent motherly love after Suyuan’s death. Its ability to change meanings creates another symbol of the pendant-one of people’s power to change what something means to them over time.
 * Lena’s vase is a symbol of her marriage in her story “Rice Husband.” Lena had placed the vase on a wobbly table and took no measures to protect it. The vase comes to represent how fragile Lena’s marriage was. The wobbly table was designed by Lena’s husband Harold when he was in architecture school, and it represents Harold’s failure to be a supportive husband.
 * The red candle with two ends for lighting in “The Red Candle” represents the marriage of Lindo and Tyan-yu. If the two ends of the candle burned for the entire wedding night, the marriage was said to be complete. Lindo blows out the candle, and it becomes a symbol of independence and freedom for Lindo.

Significance of the Opening/Closing Scenes

 * The opening scene of the novel is significant in depicting the characters for the reader. The main characters are introduced in the first scene, though we do not come to know them well until we hear each of their stories. The opening scene also illustrates the history of the Joy Luck Club as the novel quickly goes into a flashback of Suyuan’s story and her escape from China, leaving her twin daughters behind. The opening scene shows the reader Jing-mei’s conflict when the Joy Luck Club members encourage her to go to China and reunite with her long-lost twin sisters to tell them their mother’s story but she isn’t sure if she is capable of doing so. The opening scene also builds on Jing-mei as a character as her conflict is introduced.
 * The ending scene is very significant to the novel as Suyuan’s lifelong wish is finally fulfilled, though she is not present to see it happen. When Jing-mei reunites with her twin half-sisters, Chwun Yu and Chwun Hwa, Suyuan’s dream that Jing-mei would reunite with her twin daughters that she was forced to leave behind when she escaped from China during the war has been accomplished. Suyuan had dreamed of this for a long time but died before she could reunite with her twin daughters. This aspiration finally being accomplished brings a sense of resolution and closure to the novel. When Jing-mei, Chwun Yu, and Chwun Hwa take a Polaroid photo together, they realize something that they can only see when they are all together: as Jing-mei stated, “Together we look like our mother.” This brings a sense of completion to the novel.

Memorable Quotes
This quote from “Feathers from a Thousand Li Away” illustrates Jing-mei’s worries that the Joy Luck Club members will not accept her. Although she was born in a Chinese family, Jing-mei does not feel connected to the Joy Luck Club and its Chinese culture the way her mother did. This quote from “The Red Candle” is from Lindo’s wedding night. Chinese tradition said that if a red candle was lit on a wedding night and burned from both ends without going out for the whole night, the marriage was officially complete. Lindo blew out the candle as an act of defiance because she did not love her husband. This quote represents Lindo’s independence and strength because although she is now in an arranged marriage and living with a family who does not respect her, she feels that she knows who she is and what she stands for through her struggles. Ying-Ying expresses that she is not very close to her daughter in this quote from the beginning of “The Moon Lady”. She regrets not communicating with her daughter much and not coming to know her well. She has been going through life with her daughter, Lena, like a shadow, rather than as a guide. Rose Hsu Jordan reflects on the loss of her younger brother Bing in this quote from “Half and Half”. She feels that Bing was lost because of her inattention that she didn’t see him fall into the water before he drowned. But Rose discovers that faith allows the unexpected to happen and that inattention is overcome by faith as she remembers Bing’s life. At the end of the novel in “A Pair of Tickets”, Jing-mei is finally reunited with her two sisters that her mother had to abandon when she was leaving China during the Japanese attack. Her mother’s lifelong wish was to reunite with her two daughters but she died before it could be accomplished. In a Polaroid picture that Jing-mei takes with her two sisters at the end of the novel, they realize that they all resemble their mother and that their reuniting was what she would have wanted. This creates a special connection between Jing-mei and her sisters. Emmaking 19:57, 19 April 2012 (MDT)
 * 1. “The last time I saw them, at my mother’s funeral, I had broken down and cried big gulping sobs. They must wonder now how someone like me can take my mother’s place.” –Jing-mei Woo (p. 27)
 * 2. “I had genuine thoughts inside that no one could see, that no one could ever take away from me…And then I draped the large embroidered red scarf over my face and covered these thoughts up. But underneath the scarf I still knew who I was. I made a promise to myself: I would always remember my parents’ wishes, but I would never forget myself.” –Lindo Jong (p. 58)
 * 3. “For all those years I kept my mouth closed so selfish desires would not fall out. And because I remained quiet for so long now my daughter does not hear me.” –Ying-Ying St. Clair (p. 67)
 * 4. "And I think now that fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention. But somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over. You have to pay attention to what you lost. You have to undo the expectation.” –Rose Hsu Jordan (p. 131)
 * 5. "And although we don’t speak, I know we all see it: Together we look like our mother. Her same eyes, her same mouth, open in surprise to see, at last, her long-cherished wish.” –Jing-mei Woo (p. 288)

Allusions
The Joy Luck Club makes many pop culture allusions. It mentions Sunset magazine, Life magazine, The Ed Sullivan Show, Ripley's Believe It or Not, Good Housekeeping magazine, and Reader's Digest.

Adaptations
The Joy Luck Club was adapted into a movie in 1993, directed by Wayne Wang. The film starred Kieu Chinh, Tsai Chin, France Nuyen, Lisa Lu, Ming-Na, Tamlyn Tomita, Lauren Tom, and Rosalind Chao.

Reviews

 * "I enjoyed this book immensely. The portions told by the mothers about their lives growing up in China were fascinating, because Tan crafted a remarkable story for each mother about love, loss and sacrifices back in China.  All four of the mothers had such high hopes for their daughters, that they wouldn’t have to deal with any of the tragedies they themselves survived in their childhoods.  It was so interesting, then, to read about these mothers through their daughters’ eyes – what they thought of their mothers’ old-fashioned, old school Chinese ways, how they felt they could never live up to their mothers’ high expectations, and how they both loved and hated their mothers, creating incredible internal conflicts for all four daughters.  Amy Tan’s writing is fluid and very accessible, this is the first book of hers that I have read, and I really enjoyed the way she wrote it.  The only gripe I have about this novel is that I feel like I didn’t get to know the characters as much as I wanted to.  Perhaps if the book was longer there would have been more substance to each woman, or maybe if Tan focused on two mother-daughter relationships instead of four.  Having said that, I still really loved this book and am happy to recommend it." -http://heatherlo.wordpress.com/2008/02/24/review-the-joy-luck-club/
 * "Great book! It is an interesting study of old world versus modern American visions. Amy Tan offers insights into the relationships of the women. I saw the movie once late at night and had been impressed. I'm very glad I finally read the book." -http://www.jandysbooks.com/genfic/joyluck.html