Blogging fun… better late than never!: Part II
In a short foreword (again), I am fully aware that this blog is incredibly late in the game and, due to the fact that my views are presented in an untimely manner, will most likely have little effect on our book talk considering it is in roughly 9 hours. Nevertheless, for the principle of the matter (and incredibly necessary grade), the following is my section 2 blog.
Section 2 blog - “Do you think characters are restricted by the past? How does the past happiness/unhappiness influence the future happiness/unhappiness?”:
To start off, I would like to say that I strongly dislike this question. The idea that anyone could ever be uninfluenced by their past seems entirely ridiculous. To be uninfluenced by one’s past is to try to both rewrite your history and rewrite yourself. It is an impossible thing to do, whether intentional or not. ANYWAY, I feel that the characters are all affected differently by their past. While is each is strongly influenced by it, whether they allow it to put a negative or positive spin on their life is up to their own character. Waverly Jong is the best example of a woman who allows her past experiences to haunt her. As a child, Waverly was a prodigal chess player. After quickly picking up the enigmatic sport of reason, she soon became a local hero, winning tournaments and trophies galore. All of this winning, though, goes straight to her head and her mother’s pride spills over into bad parenting and she allows Waverly to become very egocentric. One day, her mother’s pride becomes to much her to bare and Waverly is publicly very rude to her, causing her mother to lose respect for her and stop supporting her chess playing. Without her mother behind her, Waverly quickly loses her strength at the game and soon falls off of the prodigal radar of the nation. Later in life, after finally finding a man she loves who loves her back, Waverly allows her mother’s lack of support to once again damage her strength. As she overthinks everything, Waverly soon finds herself no longer loving her adored fiancée, all because she believes her mother is once again withholding support. It is only once Waverly actually addresses the topic with her mother that she finds her to both appreciate the man and secretly have guessed at their betrothal.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, Rose Hsu does not allow her past unhappiness to influence her future. Instead, she combines it with some healthy advice from her mother to further benefit her own life. In Rose Hsu’s life, unhappiness is represented through her ability to sleep. When Rose is unable to sleep, she is in a bad place in her life. Following her chinese beliefs and those of her family, whenever Rose sleeps, it means she is visiting Old Mr. Chou. As a child, when she was unhappy, she could never fall asleep because she would have nightmares about Mr. Chou chasing her out of his house, the sanctuary of slumber. In those dreams, her mother often worked with Old Mr. Chou against her, chasing her through his garden and pointing her out to him. As an adult, Rose’s story is revolving around her imminent divorce from her husband. Her mother is frustrated with her because Rose refuses to open up about the relationship to her. When finally served with the divorce papers, Rose avoids them and attempts to replace her husband with happiness. She tries to do this by taking sleeping pills, representing illegimate joy, for 4 days. She would just wake up to use the bathroom and eat, then take more pills and just sleep. The sleep is devoid of any dreams, meaning she never sees Mr. Chou and therefore can never truly experience anything other than the drug induced void. Finally, after three days, her mother calls on the phone and wakes her up. Through some quick advice, she helps instill the necessary courage in Rose for her to stand up to her soon - to - be - ex - husband. After finally asserting herself for the first time in both her relationship and, most likely, her life, Rose is finally able to get some real sleep. This time, though, when she dreams of Old Mr. Chou, he welcomes her into his home with the help of Rose’s loving mother. This entire story shows how Rose is able to take a negative experience in her youth and, through the help of her mother, take away something positive.
Blogging fun… better late than never!
In a short foreword, I am fully aware that this blog is incredibly late in the game and, due to the fact that my views are presented in an untimely manner, will most likely have little effect on our book talk considering it is in roughly 10 hours. Nevertheless, for the principle of the matter (and incredibly necessary grade), the following is my section 1 blog.
Section 1 blog - “How are women depicted in contemporary fiction and media? During your reading of the novel, comment on the ways in which women are being portrayed. Consider relationship, experiences, situations, etc.”:
In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, women are shown in all shapes, sizes, and situations. The story, while confusingly organized, shows the parallel lives of two generations: the lives of the mothers and the lives of their daughters. Originally frustrating, I began to understand and, dare I say it, appreciate Tan’s disjointed plot line when I compared her writing style to the characterization and motifs throughout the novel. The resounding motif throughout the book is one of confusion. As each woman is shown during her childhood, the confusion of youth and coming into the world is constantly apparent. Each character seems to misunderstand both what is around them and how they should deal with it. Whether it is the one girl learning to win every chess match yet lose her relationship with her mother, or the other having trouble knowing who to trust, her grandmother who raised her or her biological mother who abadoned her. More often than not, it appears to me that this confusion is only worsened by their mother’s attempts to clear it up. This book is a solid dialogue on the relationship between a mother and daughter. I find it very interesting that everytime the mothers depicted attempt to help their daughters, they only worsen both the situation and their relationship. After reading the short biography of the author (located on the back flap of the book) and noticing the many similarities between Amy Tan and her characters’ lives, I wonder if this is semi - autobiographical in a sense. She depicts the chinese mother as a stubborn woman, hell bent on raising her child the same way she herself was raised. This may be Amy Tan’s attempt at venting her own frustration, yet also bridled admiration, toward her mother. I say admiration because many of the mothers, while confusing and often flat out rude, seem to have a hidden wealth of wisdom and apparent coolness under pressure. Often, when faced by trouble, the multiple characters have a common sense of jealousy toward their mothers for having this trait.
This book is an interesting excursion into the mind of a woman. As a recipient of both an x and y chromosome, it intrigues me to have an in depth view of the thought process of women. I also think it is interesting to see the generational and cultural rifts between the mothers and daughters. This is seen because the mothers are all from China, raised traditionally according to their background while the daughters are all raised in California, somewhere between Oakland and San Francisco. The apparent difference between the mothers and daughters is consistently based around their ability to hold a relationship. In today’s day and age, the American divorce rate is roughly at 50% while the Chinese divorce rate remains around 20%. This raw data immediatley puts the lives of these women into context. For all the women in the story who grow up in the US, marry American men and live American lives, divorce is either a possibility, a current reality, or a thing in their past. For all the older Chinese mothers, though, the only reason the women are alone is because they may have out lived their husband. This motif of failing American relationships shows the difference of the cultures in the eyes of Amy Tan.
Section 2 post eileen
so in section two we get a sense of the life that the daughters lead. The daughters struggle with finding themselves and coming to the realization that they will always be conflicted with the backgrounds of their mother. For Waverly, her mother takes pride through her and she has trouble gaining independence from her mother. Lena learns that the reality of what she hears may not be as bad as she thinks, and afterall her side of hte wall may be worse. Rose deals with the immense guilt for the death of her brother and Jing-Mei struggles with the piano and feels although she will never make her mother proud like Waverly could do. I like Waverly’s story the best so far. what do you guys think?
I think that in the case of the mothers, the past can be a restraint on their lives at times. The daughters have a weak grasp on what life was like back in China for their mothers and their heavy integration into American culture has made it difficult for them to understand the past of their mothers, a past which is filled with rich Chinese culture. Because of this barrier created by a lack of full comprehension of one another, it becomes difficult for the mothers and daughters to relate as the differences in their cultures are so polar. I think this is especially difficult for the mothers because it symbolizes a loss of their heritage; their heritage can’t be retained if it can’t even be understood by their daughters.
depiction of women blogtizzle
In response to the question regarding the depiction of women in the novel, I agree wholeheartedly with Lauren in that it’s shown most apparently through the mother-daughter relationships in the story. To speak generally, the story can be seen as a depiction of the positive influence a mother can have on a daughter, which is seen throughout the story in the relationships between all four Chinese women and their Americanized daughters. The book also highlights some of the struggles that women face, both from the perspective of the mothers and the daughters. Through the narrative, struggles such as rape, death, and war are highlighted as struggles of the Chinese mothers, while the daughters deal with such issues as the struggle for love, happiness, and acceptance.
Joy + Luck = This Post
This post is in response to Lauren. I am intrigued by your thoughts on the conflict of thought on destiny between the mothers and daughters. I was thinking that they might conflict because they don’t know the troubles their mothers have experienced. It seems that all of their ill-will is spun out of the break between their thoughts and their mothers’ beleifs regarding what should be customary. It seems that only Jing-Mei truly appreciates the relationship between mother and daughter, and she only began to appreciate it after her mother’s death. Waverly Jong fails to grasp the pride that here accomplishments bring her mother. And the Rose Hsu has no idea what her mother had to go through as a teenage bride in China, she spends three days passed out on sleeping pills when a marriage she had, which at least was a little based on love, fails. The daughters don’t seem to appreciate the things their mothers endured and, thusly, they can’t truly respect the opinions of their mothers.
Joy and Luck Revisited
Tan is the new superglue. She does a magnificent job connecting characters who at first seem to be completly unique. In her newly fused jumble of familial relationships everyone is connected through their misunderstanding of their mother. For example, Jing-Mei for a little while only thought that her mother wanted to brag about her daughter’s acheivments and thusly was unsatisfied with her daughter. However, when her mother gives Jing-Mei the better crab, which is even more significant because custom doesn’t allow for her to eat a crab which died before being cooked (thusly she doesn’t eat), Jing-Mei discovers that her mother actually does have love for her. She also originally thought that her mother could have murdered their neighbors’ cat, but she discovers that her mother wouldn’t do this only after her mother’s death, when the cat jumps onto her windowsill. This misunderstanding is also seen between the Jongs, Waverly and Lindo. Waverly thinks that her mother hates her fiancee, Rich, and tries in vain to find the right way to tell her mother that they will be married. She finally confronts her mother, who is surprised to discover that she appears to hate Rich and she, in fact, had known already that they would be married and had been working to find a proactive way to have them married. This also seen in the Hsu’s when Rose is facing a divorce and her mother, who is somewhat distant, pipes up and tell her to fight for her needs. Tan truly found a way to connect a variety of characters in this novel.
response to Mrs. P
Do you think characters are restricted by the past? How does the past happiness/unhappiness influence the future happiness/unhappiness?
I feel that each of the mother/daughter duos differ in the way that their pasts effects their future. For example, Ying-ying St. Clair believes that she is destined to do certain things in her future. Because of this “destiny” that she believes in, she allows it to control her future by letting Lena’s father to marry her. She does this because in her past this is what she truly believed in, and though she may be unhappy, nothing can change the “fate” of the given situation. Her past beliefs most definitely influences her future, as well as restricts what she truly wants to do and what she feels she has to do because of her belief in “fate.” Suyuan and Jing-mei also conflict in their views on destiny. Suyuan believes that her daughter will only succeed if she works hard enough to find her talent that will decide her future. Jing-mei, on the other hand, doesn’t believe in this destiny and doesn’t want her future to be forced, she wants to live on her own terms. Those are only two examples of how the past experiences (of the mothers and daughters) impacts what the future may hold for these characters.
Eileen says..Pick your nose. Simon says…BLOG
Blog for first section: So far we have been introduced to the four mothers and we learn about their previous/present struggles that they endure in China. I agree with everything Andrew and Laur have to say about the relationships between the daughters. Maybe the relationships are different in America then they seem to be in China because the mothers left a part of them behind in their first land. Ying-Ying St. Clair seems to come from a more wealthy family then the other mothers came from..although I’m still unclear if she found her family afterall before moving to America. Ps this whole blogging thing is hard, I’m not sure what to say/not very good at analyzing.
Joy and Luck in Club Form
I agree with what Lauren has written regarding the mother to daughter relationships evidenced in the book so far. Instead of roughly repeating what she has said in the previous post, I’ll take a somewhat different approach. Throughout the course of this book so far, we have seen several examples of how a mother to daughter relationship can be the crux of a happy life. In this book, in China, the mother to daughter relationship always seems to fill in an emply void in a character’s life. Jing-Mei Woo’s mother works for her whole life to contact her first daughters, finally reaching them, yet dying before she is able to do anything. Yet, when the daughters wirte back, they seem to have experienced a catharsis (there are tears on the paper). Also An-Mei Hsu, who is a member of the American Joy Luck Club, finds only an empty parental void until her mother returns to her Grandmother (Popo) on her death bed. This happened during her youth in China. However, whenever the mother-daughter relationship is taken to the states, the relationship is lacking. Waverly’s mother seems only to be proud of her accomplishments, not really herself as a person. And, Jing-Mei’s and her late mother never really connected, always having a sort of official, rather than familial relationship. This book, so far, seems to show evidence of vast differences between the relationships of mothers to daughters between America and China.
