Weaving
narrative and plot, Amy Tan’s book The Joy Luck Club explores the relationship
between mothers and daughters. Beginning with the experiences of the Chinese
mothers, the reader is taken on a journey through these women’s lives, from
their upbringing in China to the hardships they faced during their young adult
lives and circumstances that ultimately led them America. Now living in San
Francisco with grown children, the plot turns to the adult daughters who understand
little of their mothers’ rich history.
The daughters of these women are unable to perceive their Chinese heritage because they are “Americanized” culturally. However, their mothers’ still wrongly believe that their daughters intuitively understand them because of the “inner” Chinese thought process they were born with. It is only at the end of most of the mother’s lives that they realize the confusion their daughters have about the way that they live. This disheartening thought encourages the mothers’ to start sharing their experiences more openly with their daughters. Amy Tan is especially good at pointing out that although these women were raised in very different settings, the daughters are ultimately living their lives in an echo of their mother’s struggles.
