Analysis of The Joy Luck Club

Analysis of The Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club was a mah jong club founded by Suyuan during the War World II in order to create an oasis of joy and peace during chaotic times in China.   Suyuan escaped her native city before the Japanese invasion and immigrated to America, during which she was forced to abandon her twin daughters behind.   Suyuan continued the Joy Luck Club in San Francisco with three other women with similar situation-they all had very Americanized daughters.   Suyuan’s daughter, Jing-mei, in particular, was prompted to rethink her Chinese identity when she took her mother’s place in playing mah jong after her mother deceased.   Just before Suyuan’s death, she was able to locate her lost twin daughters, and it was Jing-mei’s turn to go find them and tell them their mother’s story, and the journey became the opportunity for Jing-mei to learn more about her mother’s past and search her Chinese heritage, and through that she was able to close the gap between two cultures and two generations.   The central idea implied by the author in this novel is the challenges of cultural translation, and the struggle of immigrant identity.  

Although the novel is made of sixteen inter-locking stories and involving four pairs of mother and daughter, but among all of the characters, Jing-mei tells most of the stories, so she will be regarded as the main character.   Jing-mei had a weaker and less confident personality.   Most of this was because her mother’s high expectations, when in fact it was her mother’s way of showing love and care, and motivating her-by setting high standards for her so she could succeed.   As a child Jing-mei has been often times living in someone else’s shadow, especially when her mother compares her with her peers, but what it really did was adding pressure to her.   As a result it affected her self-esteem and her capabilities to succeed.   It was particularly mentioned that she has failed her mother many times, she was not a straight A student, did not...