The Joy Luck Club

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The Joy Luck Club

• Author Amy Tan

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About the Author

• Born in Oakland California
• Grew up in San Francisco
• Other works include The Kitchen Gods Wife, The
  Hundred Secret Senses, and The Chinese Siamese
  Cat.
• She now lives in New York with her husband and
  cat Sagwa.

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Setting

• The stories of the daughters take place in San
  Francisco.
• The stories told about the mothers are told from
  different parts of China. Including Hong Kong,
  Shenzhen, and Guangzhou.
• The stories of the women date back to the 1910s
  when the mothers were born up to the 1980s when
  the daughters are grown.

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History of the Joy Luck Club

• Suyuan Woo founded the club
• It began in China as a way for women to come
  together and celebrate life during the Japanese
  attacks
• The San Francisco chapter is made of four Chinese
  ladies who came to America to start new lives and
  escape their suppressive pasts.
• The clubs activities include a large meal and
  then a competitive game of mah jong a game of
  dice and tiles.
• Stories are told around the table during the game
  which is ultimately what the book is about a
  compilation of all the womens life stories.

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Maj Jong
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Characters

• Mothers
• Suyuan Woo
• An-mei Hsu
• Lindo Jong
• Ying-ying St. Clair

• Daughters
• June Woo
• Rose Hsu Jordan
• Waverly Jong
• Lena St. Clair

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Suyuan Woo

• Sits at the East of the table
• This is where things begin
• She is the founder of the Joy Luck Club
• She wants only the best for her daughter be
  sometimes becomes overly critical
• When the Japanese attack she is forced from her
  home and wanders for days with her twins strapped
  on her back
• She must leave them on the street, and never see
  them again
• She dies at the beginning of the book leaving her
  daughter to take her place in the club and to
  find her lost twins.

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June-Mei Woo

• Daughter of Suyuan Woo
• Her mother pushed her to be a child prodigy at
  the piano when she was little but she never
  wanted to be anything but normal
• She has no desire to be married or finish school
• June becomes an advertising agent
• June and Waverly are in constant competition

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Auntie An-Mei

• Sits at the south
• When she was younger her mother was tricked into
  being a concubine for a rich man after her father
  died.
• In her unhappiness, her mother commits suicide
• An-mei too becomes overly critical and
  controlling of her daughter

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Rose Hsu Jordan

• Daughter of An-Mei
• When she was young the family took a trip to the
  beach and Rose was left in charge of watching her
  brothers
• Her youngest brother drowned and she forever
  lives in the memory of the guilt
• When she was an adult her husband, Ted, left her
  for another woman.
• Instead of keeping silent like her culture
  required, she stood up for herself and hired a
  lawyer in order to keep the house.

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Lindo Jong

• Sits in the west
• Was forced into an arranged marriage that was
  decided at her birth
• Her mother-in-law despised her because she
  wouldnt have a son.
• She found out a way to get out of the marriage by
  tricking the family into thinking the contract
  was not valid.
• She went to America
• She is a very proud woman and is not happy when
  her daughter is embarrassed by her.

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Waverly Jong

• Lindo Jongs Daughter
• Waverly was a child prodigy of chess
• She won many tournaments and her mother became
  obsessed with her success.
• Fed up with her mothers bragging Waverly quits
• As an adult Waverlys husband left her with a
  young daughter and she has now met a new man in
  the same law firm.
• Rich, her fiancé, doesnt make a good impression
  on the strict Chinese family, but is accepted
  anyway.
• Waverly is resentful at her mothers ability to
  only look at the negative.

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Ying-Ying

• Sits in the North
• Ying-ying was a spoiled child, spunky and full of
  life.
• When she becomes sixteen she believes that she
  can see the future.
• She marries a man who is significantly older than
  she who leaves her for a dancer.
• In her hurt she shuts herself off from love
• She comes to America where she meets her second
  husband and has Lena

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Lena St. Clair

• Her mother tells her that if she doesnt eat all
  of her rice her husband will be pock faced. To
  keep away from a boy down the street she quits
  eating so that he would be so sick he would die.
• The boy died of measles.
• Lena became anorexic
• Later she married a man from her same
  architecture business who added up all the bills
  and tallied up who spent what. This caused many
  disagreements between the two.

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Conflict

• Mother vs. Daughter Each daughter struggled with
  her mothers expectations and criticalness.
• Daughters vs. Culture The mothers where not
  allowed to marry again after their husbands left
  or died without adding shame to their families.
  Yet the daughters were all going through
  divorces, remarriages, not wanting to be married
  at all
• Mother vs. Religion each mother had her
  superstitions. They believed in God and yet they
  did not know doctrine.
• Mother vs. American Culture Each mother had to
  cope with the changes that they saw in America
  and the affect America had on them

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Plot

• Each Character had their own plot.
• The plot was divided into stories and put in a
  random order. Therefore each action, climax, and
  denouement came at different times. Some at the
  beginning, some at the middle, and end.

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Major themes

• The Difference of ancient Chinese culture and
  American Culture
• Chinese people had Chinese opinions, and
  American People had American Opinions. Usually
  the American opinion was better. Rose
• I was raised Chinese way I was taught to desire
  nothing, to swallow other peoples misery, to eat
  my own bitterness An-mei
• The daughters defy their mothers, find jobs,
  divorce, and get their hair cut by homosexuals.
• The mothers are critical and only want the
  absolute best for their daughters
• Chinese pride/Overachievement
• American Laziness
• Ying gets a job at a fortune cookie factory. She
  meets An-mei there and they laugh at the funny
  quotes that Americans think they use on a regular
  basis.

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Themes Cont.

• Struggle between religion and superstition
• My mother believed in Gods will for many years.
  She said it was faith that kept all these food
  things coming our way, only I thought that she
  said, fate, because she couldnt pronounce
  that, the, sound in faith. And later I
  discovered that it was fate all along.
• Some believed that they could tell the future
• If a house was slanted a wrong way the baby would
  die
• If your earlobe is big then you will have a lot
  of wisdom
• If your nose is long then you will have riches
• Yet they all went to church with the missionaries
  in San Francisco

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Themes Cont.

• No matter how a daughter is raised she will
  become her mother
• And even though I taught my daughter the
  opposite she came out the same way! Maybe it is
  because she was born to me and she was born a
  girl. And I was born to my mother and I was born
  a girl. All of us are like stairs, one step after
  another, going up and down, but all going the
  same way. An-mei
• Waverly fights her own desire, instilled by her
  mother, to be critical of her new husband.
• Rose fights her urge to be silent and allow her
  husband to walk out on her as her mother stayed
  silent when her mother died.
• Lena fights for equality in her marriage just as
  Ying-Ying fought to keep her freedom as a child
• Women were suppressed in both cultures. All the
  women were expected to hold their tears and take
  what fate had dealt them.

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Style

• Vocabulary/diction
• Tan used a lot of dialog to express the tension
  between the characters and the difficulty of the
  language barriers
• She incorporated Chinese words into her dialog
  and then defined them to add affect to the
  themes.
• Hulihuda confused
• Heimongmong dark fog
• Ying-Yings second husband didnt know how to
  propose so he asked if her he she would spouse
  him. (a word he found on a fortune cookie placed
  by Ying)
• When the characters were not using Chinese words
  the mothers all had strong dialects
• A mother is best. Mother see inside of you.
  An-Mei
• Aii, so much money, so much.

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• Descriptive language
• Tan described things in a unique way
• She didnt use a lot of sensory detail but rather
  described the feelings of the characters.
• When reading the book, you could not see the
  place that action was happening without
  imagination but you could feel the despair that
  was taking place within the character.
• I felt numb, strangely weak, as if someone ad
  unplugged the current through me.
• She described the characters traits by presenting
  their actions.
• Sometimes she would start to make dinner, but
  would stop half way, the water running full steam
  in the sink, her knife posed in the air over
  half-chopped vegetables, silent, tears flowing.
• The characters used many illustrations
• It was as if he were running to catch things
  before they fell, only he would fall before he
  could catch anything.

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• Sentence Structure
• When the daughters are speaking they use long
  sentences, with several commas and sometimes
  run-ons. This is to point out the fluency of
  their English.
• When the mothers speak they have short, choppy
  sentences and sometimes fragments
• Order of events
• They were sporadic and sometimes hard to follow
  but this added to the story telling affect.

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Conclusion

• The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Is a wonderful
  collection of stories that will make a reader
  think about how important family is and how their
  family affects their lives.