Commentary on The Joy Luck Club Essay

The Joy Luck Club presents stories about four Chinese-immigrant women and their daughters. Each of the women views the world differently and they try to share their visions with their daughters, hoping that their relationships with their daughters is just as strong as what they had with their own mothers.

One of the mothers, Suyuan Woo, forms a club in China called the Joy Luck Club in order to distract her friends from their problems during the Japanese invasion during World War II. She moves to San Francisco in 1947 after losing all of her family during the war, including her twin daughters. She has a daughter named Jing-mei and starts another Joy Luck Club with three other women. Jing-mei and Suyuan never truly understand each other because of their cultural gaps. When Suyuan unexpectedly dies Jing-mei must take her place in the Joy Luck Club. At one of the meetings her mothers friends tell her that Suyuan found her lost twins right before she died. Suyuans most cherished wish was that she could be reunited with her long-lost twin daughters. The friends urge her to go to China and tell her sisters about their mother. Jing-mei doesnt think that shes capable of telling her twin sisters about their mother because Jing-mei isnt sure she knew their mom herself. She travels to China and realizes that shes more Chinese than she thought. She learns about her own identity while also learning about her mother. She fixes the bond between her sisters and their mother. Her journey represents reconciliation between Suyuans two lives, between two cultures, and between mother and daughter. This helps Jing-mei bring closure to her mothers life, but also to her own. It also brings hope to the other Joy Luck Club members.

There are four different sections in the book, each with four different stories. In the first four stories of the book, the mothers, Lindo, Ying-ying, and An-mei, talk about their relationships with their own mothers, and they worry that their daughters views of them will never be the same. In the second section, the daughters, Waverly, Jing-mei, Lena, and Rose, relate their childhood relationships with their mothers. The great clarity with which they tell their stories shows that their mothers might be wrong. In the third group of stories, the four daughters narrate their adult problems including troubles in marriage and with their careers. Although they think that their mothers ideas have nothing to do with their own American lifestyles, their search for solutions in turn brings them back to their relationships with their mothers. In the final group of stories, the mothers struggle to offer solutions and support to their daughters and in the process they each learn a lot about themselves. An-mei realizes that Rose has not completely understood the lessons she intended to teach her about faith and hope. Ying-ying realizes that Lena has obliviously followed her passive example in her marriage to Harold Livotny. Lindo recognizes through her daughter Waverly that American culture has changed her greatly.

There are many symbols in this book. The swan and the swan feather at the beginning of the story represent all the best wishes and hope for a better life in the new world. In Part II of the book, An-mei reads a Chinese book called, The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates, which details all of the dangers that could happen to a child. The book symbolizes a mothers desire to protect her children against any and all dangers they face. In order to forget their sorrow, the women of the Joy Luck Club eat food every week. The food symbolizes love, hope, and happiness. When Jing-mei is feeling terrible about herself Suyuan gives her a green jade pendant and calls it Jing-meis life importance. The pendant symbolizes Jing-meis life importance as well as Jing-mei herself.

The present day of the book takes place in San Francisco in the 1980s. The mothers flashbacks to their childhood take in place in various places in China ranging from the 1920s to the 1940s. The different settings, China and America, in which the mothers and daughters grew up, determine their values and how they relate to the world.

The prologue before each section is written in third person limited and the rest of the stories are all written in first person point of view.

In each story the narrators voice is serious, like the narrator is deeply convinced of the power of what shes saying. The mothers are trying to convey to their daughters the lessons that they feel are essential in life, and are very serious.

The major themes of The Joy Luck Club are the nature of mother-daughter relationships and the challenges of cultural differences. Mother-daughter relationships are complicated not only by age difference, but also by different upbringings and cultural backgrounds. The daughters, who have grown up embracing the American emphasis on individuality, feel that their mothers are trying to live their lives for them. They rebel against the Chinese tradition of paying attention to their elders and pleasing parents above all else. The mothers are appalled at their daughters' lack of respect. They fear that their daughters' desire to achieve the American Dream will prevent them from ever learning about or understanding their Chinese heritage. All four of the mothers attempt to give their children the best of both worlds. Another theme is the power of language. Without a common language the Chinese mothers and American daughters cannot communicate, making it harder for them to bond. Lena St. Clair mistranslates for her mother and father, and it makes it a lot harder for them to understand each other.