Joy Luck Club

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.