Joy Luck Club

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.