Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

Identity Crisis Every person comes to a point in their life when they begin to search for themselves and their identity. Usually it is a long process and takes a long time with many wrong turns along the way. Family, teachers, and friends all help to develop a person into an individual and adult. Parents … Read more

The Joy Luck Club

What is the significance of Suyuan’s secret about her abandoned babies, in the relationship with her daughter, June? What significance was attached to the swan feather and how is it important/relevant? Suyuan lost hope in Kweilin, she lost hope for herself when she abandoned the babies on the side of the road. When she went … Read more

The Joy Luck Club Movie vs Book

The novel, The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, it tells of four Chinese women drawn together in San Francisco to play mah jong, and tell stories of the past. These four women and their families all lived in Chinatown and belong to the First Chinese Baptist Church. They were not necessarily religious, but found … Read more

The Joy Luck Club

“Hey, Sabrina, are you Japanese or Chinese?” I asked. Her reply, as it seems to be for a lot of minority groups, is, “Neither, I’m Chinese-American.” So, besides her American accent and a hyphenated ending on her answer to the SAT questionnaire about her ethnic background, what’s the difference? In Amy Tan’s enjoyable novel, The … Read more

The Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club Question: In the Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan touches on an obscure, little discussed issue: the divergence of Chinese culture through American children born of Chinese immigrant parents. With close reference to at least two stories in the book, discuss the truth of this statement. To a certain extent, I agree … Read more

The Joy Luck Club

A Motherly Role A reoccurring theme in Amy Tans novels is mother-daughter relationships.  In each of her three novels she represents different roles of the mother and the effects of each; The Joy Luck Club depicts mothers living through daughters, The Kitchen Gods Wife portrays mother teaching daughter through past experience, and finally The Hundred … Read more