Abstract This paper compares and contrast two stories from the book "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan. The two stories discussed below are "Double face" and "A Pair of Ticket" and will be supported by quotations and explanations.
Abstract In this article, the writer studies the book 'The Joys of Motherhood' by Buchi Emecheta and discusses the issues of sexual desire and gender. The writer explains that the book concerns Nigerian maternity and discusses issues relevant to the status and experience of African women.
From the Paper "Buchi Emecheta in her novel of Nigerian maternity titled "The Joys of Motherhood" addresses a number of issues relevant to the status and experience of African women living in traditional male-dominated and patriarchal societies. The central character of the novel is Nnu Ego a woman whose position as the daughter of a great Nigerian tribal chief does not prevent her from becoming the victim of physical abuse at the hands of her first husband and even of abandonment by the male ... "
Tags: Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood, gender, sexual desire
Abstract This paper provides a biography of the novelist Amy Tan born on February 19, 1952, in Oakland, California, to Chinese parents. It examines how her novel, "The Joy Luck Club", is, in many ways, a biography of Tan's life. It discusses how like the main character, Tan did not learn that she had half-sisters from her mother's previous marriage until she was older. It evaluates many other parallels between her life and the book such as how she describes her pain from her father and brother's deaths, through Suyuan Woo's loss of her twin daughters and her death. It also shows how like the main character of "The Joy Luck Club", Tan resented her mother when she was younger for being so controlling.
Outline
Introduction
A Biography
The Joy Luck Club
Generation Gaps in the Joy Luck Club
Cultural Differences
Chinese American Life
Conclusion
From the Paper "One of the major themes in Tan's ? The Joy Luck Club? is a constant quest for identity. Tan's eight main characters all face the challenge of defining themselves while they are undergoing some sort of personal conflict. Lindo Jong's early marriage into an unreceptive family caused her to become a stronger woman and made her vow to never forget her roots. Ying-ying St. Clair became a sort of "ghost" as the result of betrayal and loss in her life. Rose Hsu Jordan repeatedly tried to get her self-confidence back to standup to husband. June Woo narrates much of the story, telling of her quest to China, which was orchestrated by her Joy Luck Club aunties. June tries to understand her mother's tragic past, while realizing her own personal and ethnic identity. "
Abstract This paper examines the sonnet "Surprised by Joy," in which William Wordsworth writes about his painful feelings about the death of his daughter Catherine. Specifically, the paper discusses how, in his other poems, Wordsworth uses his memory to return to an emotional status he enjoys but, in 'Surprised by Joy", memory draws him back to the painful emotional space where he does not want to go. Memory cannot bring his daughter Catherine back to him, and his own inspiration which he usually derives from a joyful memory, cannot protect him from all the pain caused by the loss of his daughter.
From the Paper "In "Surprised by joy," the physical space is absent. Wordsworth became very hopeless and lonely when he wanted to share his joy with his dead daughter, because the memory could not bring him back to the original place where the story happened. In "Tintern Abbey," he returned back to the ruin and experienced the same scenery again. Even in "I wandered lonely as a cloud", although he revived the scene of the dancing daffodils when he was sitting "in the coach" (305, Line 19), there was still a place to go, and he could easily see those beautiful daffodils again if he wanted to. "
Abstract This paper examines how "The Joy Luck Club," a novel by Amy Tan, explores the complex, multifaceted relationships between four sets of Chinese-American mothers and daughters. The novel centers on the members of the "Joy Luck Club" and their monthly mahjong games. It looks at how Tan's method of writing and storytelling untangles the messy knot of the relationships, showing readers the differences that divide the characters from one another.
From the Paper "The first character readers meet is Jing-mei Woo, daughter of Suyuan Woo. Jing-mei, or, by her American name June, begins telling the story of her mother and how she traveled to America so many years ago. The recent death of Jing-mei's mother has caused Jing-mei to reevaluate her life and wonder about what her mother had wanted in her own life. Jing-mei is haunted by a story Suyuan told Jing-mei once, about her life in China and how she came to America. The story told by Suyuan, is the first example of the cultural differences faced by the generations of mothers and daughters."
Abstract The following essay deals with the issues of woman sexuality as portrayed in "Possessing the Secret of Joy." It compares the notion of possession in the Western culture as a romantic notion, to the subject of Walker's book, that of genital mutilation to the African woman. The author also touches on the similarities in themes between "The Colour Purple" and this novel, focusing specifically on the African Woman and the discrimination she is subjected to.
From the paper:
?Female genital mutilation is a complex issue, not a simple issue of men victimizing women as it is often portrayed. It is a product of a particular cultural context. Walker makes this clear in the way that she unfolds her narrative. She does not only present things from Tashi's perspective. She also presents things from the perspective of those who lover her. At the time Tashi's story takes place in the present, Tashi is married to a man named Adam. Of course, what has been done to his wife affects him. This is most clear, not to put to fine a point on it, in terms of their sexual relationship.?
Abstract This paper compares and contrasts two poems from William Blake's "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience" collections: 'Infant Joy' and 'Infant Sorrow'. In one poem a child is nourished and loved and in the other the child is leaping into a "dangerous world". It discusses the differences in style, language and poetic pattern between the two poems and compares their themes to events known to have occurred in Blake's lifetime.
From the Paper "An interesting concept is that in the poems there is a reference to the part of Songs they are printed in. In "Infant Joy" the narrator sings to the child, a song of innocence, in "Infant Sorrow" the mother groaned and the father wept, a song of experience. Even though some might deny that groaning or weeping are songs, they could be viewed in such a way, they are songs of realism, songs of pain, songs of experience. Thus even within these poems there is a referring to the part they are printed in, Songs of Innocence or Songs of Experience."
This paper analyzes Amy Tan's "The Joy Luck Club" as it sets its narrative against the backdrop of the key historical events of the middle of the 20th century.
Abstract This paper examines the ways in which the mother-child relationship is negotiated and continually reconstructed in "The Joy Luck Club" and the endlessly complex ways in which mothers and daughters love each other and can so easily destroy each other. All of this takes place in the context of families of Chinese-Americans in California.
From the Paper "When political barriers began to fall in the 1970's, older emigrants welcomed the chance to end their long and agonizing exiles. But their children looked with a deep ambivalence on the idea of having to awaken a dormant Chinese side in themselves. And so, as the exterior world went about recognizing China, re-establishing diplomatic relations and initiating trade and cultural exchanges, these young Chinese-Americans found themselves wrestling with a very different and infinitely more complicated interior problem: how to recognize a country to which they were inextricably bound by heritage, but to which they had never been. For Tan's daughters, this meant coming to terms with themselves as independent of their mothers and yet inextricably a part of the same heritage."
This paper discusses the book, "The City of Joy," by Dominique Lapierre, which projects the underlying message that despite the devastating life of the slum dwellers in Calcutta they have hope and love.
Abstract This paper explains that author Dominique Lapierre researched this book by living with the people of India and the people who try to help them for three years. The author states that critics have called "The City of Joy" one of the most important books on the culture and sociology of India. The paper points out that the author does not look at the topic through rose-colored glasses; he shows the abject poverty in enormous and memorable detail.
From the Paper "This is a story of people who are used to hardships and have learned how to deal with them through courage and good humor. Rather than bemoan the loss of everything he had worked so hard to obtain, Prodip Pal revels in the joy of his sons. "What a blessing those sons were" (Lapierre 7)! This is the central conception to the book, and one from which everyone can learn important lessons. These people do not feel sorry for themselves ? rather they revel in the joys they can find, because they "shared in a communal world and respected its social and religious values, maintaining the ancestral traditions and beliefs" (Lapierre 45). This is why the decrepit slum is called "The City of Joy." It is more than clear they are poor, but they are happy, and it becomes a joy to read about it, even though many of their experiences are quite simply unspeakable."
Tags: india, hardship, courage, poverty, community
Abstract This paper focuses on the mother-daughter narratives in "The Joy Luck Club". It focuses in particular on the mothers? side of the narratives. It shows how Tan successfully subverts stereotypes about Chinese and Asian women to reveal a fierce inner strength.
From the Paper "The Joy Luck Club is a rich lyrical novel that weaves 16 stories and seven viewpoints into a narrative tapestry. This review focuses on the effectiveness of Tan's multiple viewpoint narrative technique and on her subversions of the submissive Chinese woman stereotype.
One unusual feature of The Joy Luck Club is Tan's explicit inclusion of the mother's perspective. Even as the daughters tell their stories, the voices of the mothers shine through. For literary critic Marina Heung, Tan's depictions of matrilineage include her in the growing canon of writing that addresses the intersections of race, class and gender. This canon includes works by several important women of color, such as Alice Walker and Zora Neale Hurston (Heung)."
Abstract This paper reviews the movie adaptation of Amy Tan's "The Joy Luck Club", produced by Oliver Stone and looks at how it is a almost similar version of the novel, wherein numerous themes are interweaved into the scenes in the movie version. It examines how these themes include conflict between mother-daughter relationships as a result of cultural orientation differences and the theme of the eternal pursuit for luck and happiness among the characters in the novel. In particular, it analyzes the use of the themes of luck and happiness in the movie by focusing on two different scenes.
From the Paper "The second scene that is significant to the concept of luck and happiness in he movie was An-Mei Hsu's experience as a daughter of a wealthy Chinese man's concubine. Her mother, as the movie narrated, was raped by a married Chinese man, and made her a concubine ever since An-Mei's mother was banished by her own family. The death of An-Mei's grandmother reunited her once again with her mother, and they lived together in the wealthy Chinese man's house, Wu Ching. Living with her mother, An-Mei described her life to be happy and lucky, stating that she thought she ?had become so happy, so important.? Upon Wu Ching and his wives? arrival from a vacation, An-Mei realizes that her and her mother's luck is temporary, since she discovers the lowly status of her mother in Wu Ching's family, further worsened by the fact that Wu Ching's second wife's son is actually her (An-Mei) mother's son."
Tags: mother-daughter, relationships, culture, china
Abstract This paper analyzes the novel "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan focusing on some of the major conflicts that were experienced by the characters of the novel. The conflicts are more or less based on the two different generations of parents and their children i.e. the grandparents, parents and finally the children.
Abstract This paper reviews the novel, "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan, the story of four Chinese women in San Francisco who come together to play mah-jong and invest in stocks. It looks at how the story in the novel is not linear, since it involves memory, recollections, and anecdotes told by the women who meet each week and how one generation speaks to another and is able to do so across the gulf that usually separates the generations. It also discusses how the film version is a fair and expressive representation of the novel that makes changes in narrative flow in order to match the different methods of filmmaking.
From the Paper "The theme of the novel is clearly indicated in the opening passage as the old woman remembers a swan she bought in Shanghai and remembers her arrival in America, which was not as liberating as she had hoped: "And then she had to fill out so many forms she forgot why she had come and what she had left behind" (Tan 17). This was in the past, and now the woman faces her memories and the reality of her daughter and seeks to bring the two into juxtaposition and understanding. Now that she is old, she thinks about her daughter "who grew up speaking only English and swallowing more Coca-Cola than sorrow" (Tan 17)."
Abstract This paper explains the prevailing theme of mother-daughter relationships in Amy Tan's novel, "The Joy Luck Club," and looks at the novel's focus on the need for Asian-born mothers and their daughters to reconcile the past with the present.
From the Paper "One way Tan came to terms with this was embracing multiple perspectives and dual identities, Chinese and American. "I think that the other reason that I've become a storyteller is that I was raised with so many different conflicting ideas that it posed many questions for me in life, and those questions became a filter for looking at all my experiences and seeing them from different angles. That's what I think that a storyteller does, and underneath the surface of the story is a question or a perspective or a nagging little emotion, and then it grows." (Giles, 1995) The multi-layered narrative structure of The Joy Luck Club generated by this upbringing is striking, as it alternates past and present, between the different perspectives of the members of the club and their daughters."
