1) This novel is about four different mothers who are from China and their American-raised daughters. This novel is confusing at the beginning and hard to follow due to the many transitions between the four families. In the Woo family the mother is named Suyuan Woo and the daughter is named Jing-mei Woo, also known as June. In the Jong family the mother is named Lindo Jong and the daughter is named Waverly Jong. In the Hsu family the mother is named An-mei Hsu and the daughter is named Rose Hsu. In the St.Clair family the mother is named Ying-ying St. Clair and the daughter is named Lena St. Clair. All four mothers make up the Joy Luck Club which is a club that gets together weekly to play a game called mahjong. Jing-mei is asked to take her mother's place when she passes away. Before Suyuan died, she had just found the address to her two daughters' house. When Suyuan was traveling to America she had to leave her two daughters behind but she swore to herself that she would come back to them one day. At Jing-mei's first club meeting the other mothers give her $1,200 for her to go and visit the twins and tell them about Suyuan. Suyuan always compared Jing-mei to Waverly and tried to find Jing-mei's hidden skill. She eventually signs Jing-mei up for piano lessons but that didn't go very well. Jing-mei and her father travel to meet the twins. Jing-mei is surprised at the culture here because she had a different picture of what China would look like in her head. The three sisters eventually meet and they all embrace and cry for their mother's loss. Jing-mei then takes out a picture and they realize they all look just like Suyuan. Waverly finds out that she has a gift for playing chess after convincing her brothers to let her play with them at Christmas. She was fascinated by the power each piece had and she spent the next few days studying an instruction pamphlet. Lau Po was an old man who played chess in the park and he began to teach her strategies. Eventually, she became a celebrity and people came to see her. After telling her mother about engagement to her boyfriend Rich, Lindo takes her to a restaurant. Whenever Waverly mentions his name, however, Lindo always changes the subject or ignores her so she invites Lindo to their apartment so she can see how serious they are. Waverly is scared that Lindo will criticize him as she did to her first husband. At a dinner with all of them, Rich makes a lot of blunders that embarrasses Waverly. Thankfully, Lindo eventually approves of the marriage and is invited on the honeymoon with Waverly and Rich. Waverly is ashamed of her Chinese heritage and Lindo is sad about trying to make her daughter half American and half Chinese as it is impossible. After realizing her and her mother have the same nose, Waverly finds herself becoming proud of her heritage and she tells her mother she will stop wearing two different masks (one American and one Chinese) all the time. Rose is hesitant to tell her mother about the fact that her husband Ted and her are getting a divorce. It is against the words of the bible. When Rose was younger her brother Bing was killed after he fell into the ocean. Her whole entire family blamed themselves for his death and they lost a lot of their faith that day. When Rose receives divorce papers and a big check in the mail from Ted she spends a lot of days being depressed in bed. Ted eventually calls and asks her why she hasn't signed the papers and she announces she will not leave the house and let him push her around. Ying-ying announced to Lena that she was pregnant. However, she eventually lost the baby and she continued to blame herself even though Lena tried to constantly comfort her. Lena tells us about how her mother is able to predict evil things that will occur in her family. When her mother visits her husband Harold and her in their new home she comments a lot about a list of prices of shared items Lena and Harold have. Ying-ying is surprised and lectures Lena on how she should not have to pay Harold back for simple things he does like buying her ice cream. When a vase suddenly breaks Ying-ying explains that that "You put something else on top, everything fall down". This is a warning about their marriage.
2) I think a prominent theme of the novel is the challenge of generational transitions. All the mothers seem to become disconnected to their daughters. Growing up in America made the daughters accustomed to the traditions here while the mothers still carried on their old traditions.
3) The tone of the book is very serious. Throughout the whole book all of the mothers are constantly giving their daughters advice. They don't want their daughters to make the same mistakes they once did. "A mother is best. A mother knows what is inside you,” she said. . . . “A psyche-atricks will only make you hulihudu, make you see heimongmong.” Back home, I thought about what she said. . . . [These] were words I had never thought about in English terms. I suppose the closest in meaning would be “confused” and “dark fog.”But really, the words mean much more than that. Maybe they can’t be easily translated because they refer to a sensation that only Chinese people have. . . ." "Her wisdom is like a bottomless pond. You throw stones in and they sink into the darkness and dissolve." "And now I must tell her everything about my past. It is the only way to pull her to where she can be saved."
4) Literary Techniques:
-Dialect: "Your mother very smart lady." All of the mothers of the book speak in a broken English language.
-Rhetorical Question: "I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these two things do not mix?"
-Evocative: "Except for the smell of camphor, it feels the same – as if Rose, Ruth, and Janice might soon walk in with their hair rolled up in big orange-juice cans and plop down on their identical narrow beds."
-Contrast: "Auntie Lin and my mother were both best friends and arch enemies who spent a lifetime comparing their children. I was one month older than Waverly Jong, Auntie Lin’s prized daughter. From the time we were babies, our mothers compared the creases in our belly buttons, how shapely our earlobes were, how fast we healed…and later, how smart Waverly was at playing chess, how many trophies she had won last month, how many newspapers had printed her name, how many cities she had visited."
-Conflict: We were presented with a conflict at the very beginning of the book when Suyuan dies and Jing-mei is left with the mission to visit her twin sisters.
-Imagery: "So I walked closer yet, until I could see the face of the Moon Lady: shrunken cheeks, a broad oily nose, large glaring teeth, and red-stained eyes. A face so tired that as she wearily pulled off her hair, her long gown fell from her shoulders. And as the secret wish fell from my lips, the Moon Lady looked at me and became a man."
-Foreshadowing: At the beginning of each part of the book, we are told a parable that gives us a hint about what is yet to come. Example: Feathers From a Thousand Li Away
-Narrator: There are eight different ones in the book. (all the mothers and all the daughters)
-Similie: "I was like the wind." Lindo realizes that she is strong woman who is capable of anything.
-Personification: "I saw that lightning had eyes and searched to strike down little children."
Characterization:
1) Indirect Characterization:
-"And the answer, the one that was important above everything else, ran through my body and fell from my lips: 'You can’t just pull me out of your life and throw me away.'"Rose stands up for herself the first time and we can see that she has a lot of pride and is strong.
- "My daughter did not look pleased when I told her this, that she didn’t look Chinese. She had a sour American look on her face." Waverly is proud of her Chinese heritage and doesn't like when her mom says she looks all American.
Direct Characterization:
- "Standing perfectly still like that, I discovered my shadow. At first it was just a dark spot on the bamboo mats that covered the courtyard bricks. It had short legs and long arms, a dark coiled braid just like mine." Ying-ying gives a self description of herself as she looks at her shadow.
-"I looked in the mirror and saw a reflection of my mother. Light skin and dark hair."
2) The author's syntax and diction change as Tan focuses on different characters. This book is told from eight different point of views; the mothers' and the daughters'. For example, when the mothers are telling their stories, they tend to talk in very long, complex sentences as they tell the readers stories of their past. They also use a lot of Chinese words in their descriptions. When the daughters talk they stick to English words instead of Chinese.
3) Jing-mei is one of the protagonists of the story. I felt like she was a very dynamic character. In the beginning of the story she didn't have a very strong connection with her mother, but when her mother passed away and she learned about her twin sisters, she looked back on all of the things her mother said and taught her. She thought she didn't know a lot about her mother and was scared when the other mothers gave her money to fund the trip to visit her sisters. When she arrived at the airport she was able to connect with her sisters and she told them the story of their mother.
4) After reading this book I felt like I met the characters, even though the book kept changing perspectives, I was able to get to know all of the characters. Seeing how the daughters all changed throughout the story and how the mothers really cared about their daughters made me feel a connection. Amy Tan's very descriptive language helped because during some of the stories that the mothers told, I was really able to picture the scene playing out in my head. "Saint took me to America, where I lived in houses smaller than the one in the country. I wore large American clothes. I did servant’s tasks. I learned the Western ways. I tried to speak with a thick tongue. I raised a daughter, watching her from another shore. I accepted her American ways."
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