Joy Luck Club Essay

The Joy Luck Club is a tale that traces the journey of the main narrator, Jing-Mei Woo. Through the path of this story she comes to understand the motivations and reasons for her mothers actions. By coming to understand these Jing-Mei Woo finds the difference and similarities of her American and Chinese self. Once she realizes who she really was, she found that was what truly mattered and was the meaning to success.

On her journey Jing-Mei 'June' Woo is trying to discover who she is. She is split between two worlds, two bodies. She couldn't see herself as her Chinese self and American self, it was one or the other. In this book, written by Amy Tan, Waverly, Rose, and Lena all have white boyfriends or husbands. During this time Jing-Mei still doesn't understand where she stands so she goes to China to get things straight and figure herself out.

June and her mother, Suyuan, does not have a strong bond. But throughout the story all mothers and their daughters had an incompatible bond that was still connected to each other in some way. The mothers can't explain themselves to their daughters because they don't necessarily speak the same language, and when they do talk they aren't on the same term of meaning. For example, Waverly wants to marry a white man but is too afraid to tell her mom. She's paranoid of what her mom would say, when in actuality her mom already knows and has accepted the fact he's white. This being so Waverly still doesn't know and is uneasy whenever her mom says something about him. (201,204) When it comes to Jing-Mei and Suyuan Woo, Suyuan fought with June telling her there are only two types of daughters obedient and disobedient, and in her house only the obedient are aloud. Jing-Mei brings up the fact that she wishes she had never been born and that she wishes she were dead, like the twins they never spoke of. (153) This left Suyuan speechless and in shock, leaving their relationship hanging by a thread.

Jing-Mei looks at herself in the mirror, seeing disappointment in herself and from her mother. She is trying to become the prodigy her mother wants her to become and can not achieve it. (141) Jing-Mei feels as if shes being betrayed be her mom. Later on, she realizes that the words her mom was trying to explain to her had more meaning than she thought. Her mom was trying to explain to Jing-Mei that she was better than Waverly. Suyuan was trying to make it clear that Jing-Mei did not need to be this 'big shot' lawyer Waverly was to be successful in life. Suyuan meant that Jing-Mei was completely capable of being successful by being a good person and she's better than Waverly because of this. Suyuan compares Jing-Mei and Waverly saying that unlike Waverly Suyuan can break free from pursuing material success without being a good person and is able to do and be both, like a crab that only walks one way and teaches it to walk both ways. (230)