The Joy Luck Club

Amy Tan

BACKGROUND

Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club is about four Chinese mothers, who came to America when they were young, and their grown daughters who were born in the United States. The mothers formed a club, where they play a Chinese tile game, eat a lot of food, and talk about life. Their stories about their youth in China are both sad and magical. The moms are filled with old-fashioned wisdom, while their daughters' lives are more modern and involve complications their mothers never dreamed of. Because they have different ways of looking at the world, the mothers and daughters often don't see eye-to-eye, but there is a strong bond between them. Told from different points of view, the wisdom in this novel plays out in stories of love, hope, desire, and loss.

 

MAIN CHARACTERS

June: daughter

Suyuan: June’s mother.

Rose: daughter

An-mei: Rose’s mother

Waverly: daughter

Lindo: Waverly’s mother

Lena: daughter

Ying-ying: Lena’s mother

 

PLOT

Each daughter has a long-time tension or conflict with her mother. At the same time, each mother feels her daughter does not have a handle on life. The mothers and daughters love one another, but their relationships are full of misunderstanding.

In the first half of the book everyone tells her story -- the daughters with their "American" problems, and the mothers with their hard beginnings and "Chinese" lessons. Each of the daughters feels disapproved of by her mother. Each of the mothers feels her own view of life has been lost to her daughter.

Each mom has strength she wants to give to her daughter. In the second half of the book, the mothers are allowed to influence their daughters' adult lives. The daughters learn to incorporate their mothers' Chinese wisdom, which was born in a faraway land, into their American situations.

 

 

CHAPTER BY CHAPTER

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

 

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

 

 

THINGS TO MAKE YOU LOOK SMART