Power in The Joy Luck Club Essay

Power

In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan writes about a character, Lindo Jong, a young woman growing up in China while enduring an arranged marriage. She is not extremely happy about the situation but wants to satisfy her parents wishes. Lindo learns about the powers of invisible strength and uses them to her advantage. Lindos invisible strength helps her through her struggle to retain her Chinese identity.

Lindo Jong learns from an early age the powers of invisible strength, which is hiding ones thoughts until the time is right to reveal them, and believing in ones inner self even when one finds oneself in trouble. While in China, she discovers these values. Lindo gets involved in a marriage that has no love involved and has to deal with being her mother-in-laws slave. The moment she moved in, her mother-in-law notified a cook servant, teach her to wash rice properly so that the water runs clear. Her husband cannot eat muddy rice. This shows the reader just a glimpse of the life Lindo had to endure while living under her roof. By going along with her mother-in-laws superstition and fear, Lindo eventually removes herself from the marriage with her dignity intact, and without dishonoring her parents promise to her husbands family. She becomes aware of her personal thoughts and sees that they resemble the wind. Throughout her life, Lindo embraces the symbol of the winds invisible strength as a way to know her own value.

Lindo experiences the largest crisis of cultural identity of any of the characters in the book. She regrets having wanted to give her daughter, Waverly both the American way of life and Chinese traditional values. She sees that the two can never combine successfully. Lindo thinks that from the moment she gave Waverly an American name she allowed her to become too Americanized. She says, Its my fault she is this way. I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. Distraught by this, Lindo wonders what she has lost by the adaptation to the American way of life. Her strategies of hiding her inner powers and knowledge may be related to her ability to uphold living with the differences between Chinese and American culture.

Overall, Lindo is definitely a tough woman. She is able to free herself from a horrible marriage while staying true to both her own and her parents wishes. She also has a strong sense of self. Lindo recognizes her inner thoughts and sees that they are like the wind, powerful even though they are invisible. During her life, she holds on to the metaphor of the winds invisible strength and uses it as a way to know her own value.

Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. New York: Ballantine Books, 1989. Print.