Summary:
Throughout the Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan projects the characters personalities. Their personalities and characteristics change and advance positively in mother daughter relationships. This results in a more positive ending for each of their stories.
The Joy Luck Club Essay
My paper will prove that in the Joy Luck Club, Jing-Mei Waverly Jong, Lena St. Clair, and Rose are influenced by culture by different events that their family's. Throughout the story, Amy Tan projects the characters personalities. Their personalities and characteristics change and advance positively in mother daughter relationships. This results in a more positive ending for each of their stories.
Jing-Mei is an outcast, yet an independent. Jing-Mei does not like to be controlled or influenced by others. In the begging of the story, Jing-Mei is forced by her mother to play piano, even though she doesn't want to. This causes Jing-Mei to have a tough personality as well. As the story progresses Jing-Mei thinks that she has let her mother down. Not playing piano anymore and not following the culture of her mother results in disappointing her mother. This renders Jing-Mei to think that she is always disappointing her mother and that Jing-Mei's mother is never pleased with her. After Jing-Mei's mother passes away, Jing-Mei feels as if she has not connected with her mother. Jing-Mei feels unsatisfied with her relationship with her mother. " Only you pick that crab." (234) This is the part where Jing-Mei's mother told her that she has never expected anything of her, just hoped for her. Jing-Mei's mother is pleased to see that Jing-Mei took the crab from the dinner table with the worst quality. Therefore, leaving the best quality crabs for everyone else. After she finds out that her two sisters in China are still alive, she goes and visits them. This is a major change in Jing-Mei's life because it made her realize that she has a good relationship with her mother all this time. She is not able to realize this without her sisters because her two sisters have never even seen her mother before, so she should be greatful for the relationship that she has with her mother. Jing-Mei's characteristic is similar to Waverly's because Waverly Jong is a strong, which is almost the same as Jing-Mei, having a tough independent characteristic.
Waverly Jong has a strong personally. At first she thought that her mother didn't accept. When Waverly is young she used to play chess, and is a prodigy chess player. Waverly got mad at her mother showing her off to everyone just because she is a prodigy. This resulted in Waverly quitting chess. After Waverly decided to play chess again, she has lost her talent and spirit in playing chess, and she quit again. "You're not a genius." (150) Waverly has lost spirit in her playing chess. She never followed her mother's culture and has a white boyfriend named Rich. Even though Rich's parents are very high class and opulent he isn't because he likes Waverly for who she is and not wealth. "She looked at rich and sighed." (235) Her mother is not satisfied with Waverly's decisions. After she stood up to her mother, she realized that her mother has always respected her decisions. Waverly has an acrid personality, an example is that she perfidiously embarrasses Jing-Mei at the dinner table at the new years party. Even though Jing-Mei is a benefactor for Waverly and helps her with work. Waverly still thinks that Jing-Mei is bad at it. Hence, Waverly is still and competitive. This is a good personality because to improve and progress in life you must be strong and ready at whatever comes at you, and you'll have motivation to keep progressing.
Lena St. Clair is very emotionally weak and passive. She is gregarious and she needs her mother to gain the confidence needed for her to have a divorce with her husband Harold. At first she doesn't care about the unequal marriage that her and her husband Harold have until she is inspired and given spirit by her mother. Lena St. Clair knows that her marriage with Harold is unfair, yet she still goes with it because she doesn't want to start any conflicts. "I owe him fifty from my own account." (169) This They has an unequal balance list. Lena thinks that there's lack of love between her and Harold. Yet she still doesn't speak out. "I know our marriage is based on more than a balance sheet." (180) Lena is not feeling the love she should be from her husband; it also shows that Lena is getting pissed with Harold. At the end of Lena's story, her mother inspires her to speak out to Harold and get a divorce with him. At first Harold made Lena pay for ice cream, but Lena doesn't even eat ice cream. That shows that their marriage is unequal. Her mother tells Harold "Lena can't eat ice cream." (176) and Lena backs her up saying that she's hated ice cream since she is a child. This is a bad characteristic because if you are like this then you can easily be pushed around and controlled by people who are more dominant than you.
Rose is a wise person because at first her and Ted has a good relationship because he stood up for Rose. Even when their relationship started to fall apart, she didn't get a divorce because she is wise and Ted wanted to work things out. Rose is a hesitant person; she lets Ted make all the decisions because she has no hope since she feels responsible for the death of Bing. "What is the point, there is no hope" (139) She lets Ted make the crucial decisions all the time because she wants him to be happy, Rose is a wise wife and she's not trying to start conflicts in the relationship. On page 127 she asks Ted if he wants Thai food or Italian food. She wants to keep her husband happy. But after when she started going overboard with making him happy he got annoyed at her. But Ted and her still worked it out. This is a bad characteristic because if she doesn't put her own thought into a their relationships decisions than what kind of relationship is that.
Amy Tan the author of The Joy Luck Club wanted to show us the hard times and good times of being in a mother daughter relationship. The Joy Luck Club shows us different perspectives and angles of people's characteristics. It shows us the bad characteristics turn into good ones. A family should be a happy, heart-warming place to be, even if you have to work hard at it. Amy Tan illustrates this through characteristics through her characters.
This is the complete article, containing 1,089 words
(approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page).
