Joy Luck Club Term Paper

Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan

Multiple meanings, multiple experiences: Multiculturalism and mother-daughter relationships in "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan

In the novel "The Joy Luck Club," author Amy Tan delved into the dynamics and nature of relationships between Chinese mothers and second-generation Chinese-American daughters. Illustrating through the relationships of four mother-and-daughter pairs, Tan reflected how multiculturalism had contributed to the strain in the relationships of people exposed to different beliefs, values, and viewpoints in life. The novel centered most particularly on the relationship between Suyuan Woo and Jing-mei "June" Woo, whose antagonistic treatment against each other was the result of misperceptions and misunderstandings from the different cultures they had known and grew up with.

The antagonistic nature and conflict-filled dynamics of Suyuan and June's relationship reflected Tan's objective, which was to portray through their characters how multiculturalism had created a 'gap' between the two characters, straining their relationship until Suyuan's death. Their relationship was just one of the many conflicts that emerge from multiculturalism, an inevitable social change in American society that led to the hybridization of numerous cultures extant in the society. June's Chinese and American heritage created conflict within her, wherein she was not able to reconcile whether she should be Chinese or American; to reconcile both would result to an altogether different identity. Whichever cultural identity June chooses, she was met with criticisms by her mother -- by being 'not too Chinese or American enough.' Similarly, Suyuan's Chinese identity clashed against June's pluralist view of her culture (i.e., both Chinese and American).

Given these conditions of the protagonists' relationship, this paper presents a discussion of two emergent themes in the novel, wherein multiculturalism was put into the context of Suyuan and June's relationship in the novel.These themes are: (1) multiculturalism had created a feeling of void or inappropriateness to feel empathy for the other for both Suyuan and June and (2) Suyuan and June's different cultures, while most of the time detrimental and results to conflicts, actually complement each other in that it allowed each to further understand the other's feelings and thoughts.

The first theme was explicated through a story in the novel's introduction. In it, Tan illustrated the experience of the Chinese woman who had been hopeful about her new life in the United States. Symbolically representing this hope, aspirations, and a part of herself through a swan feather, the Chinese woman resembled the life of the individual who had diminished, if not lost, her hopes of fully sharing with her daughter the life and experiences that she had in China. The diminishing of hopes furthered when she realized that she raised her daughter in a society radically different from her own, distancing the woman from her daughter:

Now the woman is old. And she had a daughter who grew up speaking only English and swallowing more Coca-Cola than sorrow. For a long time now the woman had wanted to give her daughter the single swan feather and tell her, "This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions." And she waited, year after year, for the day she could tell her daughter this in perfect American English.

This passage highlighted multiculturalism and its limits in creating a close relationship between mother and daughter.….....