Suyuan and Jing-Mei’s Relationship in the Joy Luck Club...

Suyuan and Jing-Mei’s relationship in The Joy Luck Club In The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Jing-Mei and her mother have a very rocky relationship. Tan develops a relationship between Suyuan and Jing-Mei that is distant in the beginning due to culture differences and miscommunication, but gradually strengthens with time and understanding. Both of them have different backgrounds and have been influenced by two different cultures. Suyuan grew up in China and behaves according to the Chinese culture and her American-born daughter Jing-Mei is influenced by the American culture that surrounds her and wants to become part of it. Their relationship is also shaped by the pressure Suyuan puts on Jing-Mei. She wants her to be a perfect†¦show more content†¦It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood. After all these years, it can finally be let go,† (Tan, 288) Also, their relationship is shaped by the pressure Suyuan puts on her daughter. When Jing-Mei was growing up, her mother had the need for her daughter to be smart, talented, and a respectful Chinese daughter. This pressure put on Jing-Mei resulted in misunderstanding between mother and daughter. Jing-Mei constantly believed, â€Å"that she was disappointing her mother,† because she felt as if she failed at everything her mother wanted her to do. She believed she could never be as perfect as her mother was. Therefore she doesn’t think she is worthy enough to take her mother’s place at the Joy Luck Club â€Å"They must wonder now how someone like me can take my mother’s place† (Tan, 27). Jing-Mei does not understand that her mother wanted the best for her; Suyuan wanted Jing-Mei to challenge herself because that is how one builds up character. Suyuan thinks her daughter could do anything she proposed to do but never put enough effort into anything â€Å"Lazy to rise to expectations† (Tan 31). Furthermore, Suyuan forced Jing-Mei to learn how to pl ay the piano and then perform at a recital. Jing-Mei rebelled against her mother and refused to learn how to play the piano well. So, at the recital she ends up forgetting the music notes. Jing-Mei blames her embarrassment on her mother and states,Show MoreRelatedAmy Tan Essay1532 Words   |  7 Pagessisters Tan had never met. The trip provided Tan with a new perspective on her mother, and it proved to be the key inspiration for her first book, The Joy Luck, a collection of sixteen interlocking stories about the conflicts between Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters. Soon after its publication in 1989, The Joy Luck Club garnered enthusiastic reviews, and it remained on the New York Times bestseller list for more than six months. It won both the National Book Award andRead More Improving Mother/Daughter Relationships in Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club1216 Words   |  5 PagesImproving Mother/Daughter Relationships in Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club One day everything is going great, in fact things could not be better and then you say something and your friend turns to you and says â€Å"oh my god, you sounded just like your mother†.   That is when you freak out and think to yourself it is true I am turning into my mother.   This is every daughters worst nightmare come true.   When a young girl is growing up her mother always says and does things that the girl vows she will neverRead More The Complexity of Mother and Daughter Relationships in Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club1316 Words   |  6 PagesThe Complexity of Mother and Daughter Relationships in Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club   Ã‚  Ã‚   Since the beginning of time the mother and daughter relationship has been complex.   The book The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan is a great example of the mother and daughter relationship.   In the book Amy Tan writes about four women who migrate to America from China.   All of the women were in search of a better life since the lives they had in China were not what they wanted for themselves.   Even though all of the womenRead MoreThe Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan841 Words   |  3 PagesIn the Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, tells stories of four Chinese mothers and four Chinese-American daughters and their mother-daughter relationship. The four mothers met in a San Francisco church in 1949. Suyuan Woo, founder of the Joy Luck Club, convinced the other mothers An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Yingying St. Clair to join the club. The club would meet every week at one of the mother’s house where they eat food, play mahjong, and brag about their daughters. The Chinese-American daughters tellRead MoreAnalysis Of Amy Tan s The Joy Luck Club Essay1664 Words   |  7 PagesLauren Lee 11 September 2016 English 203H 1st Period 3 paragraphs â€Å"The Joy Luck Club† Journey of the Swan In Amy Tan’s story â€Å"The Joy Luck Club,† Jing-mei recalls the struggles she is burdened by in not understanding the extensive sacrifices her mother made and the guilt she carries of never living to be her mother’s swan. For the majority of her life, June has battled with the tedious thoughts of why her mother never seemed content with her. â€Å"Auntie Lin and my mother were both best friends andRead MoreEssay on Understanding the Mothers in Amy Tans The Joy Luck Club1044 Words   |  5 PagesUnderstanding the Mothers in The Joy Luck Club      Ã‚  Ã‚   In America, it is common to take mothers for granted and reject the advice they try to give. Generally, their attempt to give advice is considered as an intrusion into our lives and our privacy. In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan tries to get the reader to take a step back and see the good intentions behind our mothers actions.    In the stories told by Jing-Mei, Tan weaves in flashbacks and memories of Jing-Meis own childhood experiences,Read MoreAmy Tan s Touching Novel The Joy Luck Essay1514 Words   |  7 Pages Amy Tan’s touching novel The Joy Luck follows four mothers/daughters pairings. Each pair had a momentous experience from childhood that had an impact on them in their adulthood. The impact is shown by the way Suyuan Woo, Lindo Jong, Ying-ying St. Clair, and An-mei Hsu, who left their country for their own respective reasons raise their daughters. The Joy Luck is centered around their American-born daughters Jing-mei â€Å"June† Woo, Waverly Jong, Lena St. Clair, and Rose Hsu Jordan. The problems eachRead MoreAnalysis Of Amy Tan s The Joy Luck Club1637 Words   |  7 PagesRelationships define a connection between two beings, whether it be through blood, friendship, or romance. In most cases, the first group that people experience is with their families. The kinship people are born into comes with ups and downs, which may cause a rift between both parties. Thus, maintaining a seamless connection may become a struggle between two dissimilar individuals, â€Å"Like ma ny relationships, we have our struggles, our misunderstandings, and our miscommunications. We are veryRead MoreConflicts Resolved in the Joy Luck Club1442 Words   |  6 PagesAmy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club. The desire to find ones true identity, along with the reconciliation of their Chinese culture and their American surroundings, is a largely significant conflict among the characters of the novel. In the discovery of ones individuality develops a plethora of conflicts involving the theme of a lack of communication and misinterpretation of one another. Although, as time progresses, the various conflicts of the characters in The Joy Luck Club that pose major threatsRead MoreAmy Tan s The Joy Luck Club Essay805 Words   |  4 PagesThe Joy Luck Club is a well-known novel that discusses the difficulties that Chinese American immigrants face especially in the second generation. This novel specifically focuses in on the stories of the mothers and their daughters, their su fferings and triumphs. Due to both the generational and cultural differences between the mothers and daughters are extreme and these differences cause their relationship to be strained. I think that one of the critical themes from the book comes from Jing-mei’s