Four Mothers Of The Story example essay topic

The Joy Luck Club was her first big success and was translated into seventeen languages and stood at New York Times best-seller list for nine months. The plot follows the lives of four Chinese Immigrant mothers and their American born daughters. Tan weaves an intricate story as the the four families intertwine and reveal their own secrets forming and strengthening the mother daughter bond. The story begins on one daughter, Jing-me, who takes the place of her mother at the Joy Luck Club table in place of her mother (Suyan Woo) who had died. This club was created by the four mothers of the story, Suyan Woo, An-me Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair during the war. The mothers met and played Mah-Jong, ate good dinners, and gambled.

All to escape the cruelties of their lives, to brighten their spirits. Jing-me learns of her mother's past, of her difficult decisions such as leaving behind two daughters in China on the side of the road. The club learns of the location of those two daughters and are saving to send Jing-me to meet them. As the date nears each mother recalls in vivid detail their own pasts in China.

An-me (mother of Rose Hsu) as a child was forbidden to speak her mother's name. She was told her mother dishonored the family by remarrying after her husbands death. Her mother ends up killing herself to give An-me a better position in life. Lindo (mother of Waverly Jong) had her marriage arranged when she was very young. The young man she was destined to wed was spoiled and immature.

Lindo fabricated a an elaborate story about an angry ancestor who would kill her husband should they stay married. She was given money and pushed off to America and was told to not speak of the curse to anyone. Ying-ying (mother of Lena St. Clair) discovered as a child that the magic and wonder of many things she believed in such as a favorite Moon Festival was only an elaborate act. As an adult Ying is a strong character, not letting things in general affect her. The daughters also remember their own lives growing up in California with their Chinese mothers. Many of the daughters grew up, like Tan, feeling they belonged neither in China nor in America and began to reject and question their own background.

Waverly was a chess champion, she quit when she and her friend Lindo fought. As an adult she is starting to see major flaws in his once 'perfect' personality. Waverly and the other daughters are now seeing the Chinese part of them in a whole new light. They do not shun their heritage, but rather they find it as much a part of them as their soul. Jing finds herself at the door of her half-sisters home and is stressed because she feels she does not belong there. But when the door opens the sisters embrace and Jing realizes that Chinese is in her blood, it is always a part of her.

Throughout the story is the constant conflict of the mothers way of thinking influenced by their lives in China while their daughters way thinking evolved from their lives in America. The following are passages demonstrate the different views. The first is in the view of Lindo Jong. 'I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents' promise.

This means nothing to you, because to you promises mean nothing. A daughter can promise to come to dinner, but if she has a headache, if she has a traffic jam, if she wants to watch her favorite movie on TV, she no longer has a promise. 'I watched this same movie when you did not come. The American soldier promises to come back and marry the girl.

She is crying with genuine feeling and he says, 'Promise! Promise! Honey-sweetheart, my promises are as good as gold. ' Then he pushes her onto the bed. But he doesn't come back. His gold is like yours, it is only fourteen carats.

'To Chinese people, fourteen carats isn't real gold. Feel my bracelets. They must be twenty-four carats, pure inside and out. 'It's too late to change you, but I'm telling you this because I worry about your baby. I worry that someday she will say, 'Thank you, Grandmother, for the gold bracelet. I'll never forget you.

' But later, she will forget her promise. She will forget she had a grandmother. ' The second is from the view of Lena St. Clair. ' I always thought it mattered, to know what is the worst possible thing that can happen to you, to know how you can avoid it, to not be drawn by the magic of the unspeakable. Because, even as a young child I could sense the unspoken terrors that surround our house, the ones that chased my mother until she hid in a secret dark corner of her mind. And still they found her.

I watched, over the years, as they devoured her, piece by piece, until she disappeared and became a ghost. '.