Essay on Search for Identity in Amy Tans The Joy Luck Club

Search for Identity in Joy Luck Club Each person reaches a point in their life when they begin to search for their own, unique identity. In her novel, Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan follows Jing Mei on her search for her Chinese identity – an identity long neglected. Four Chinese mothers have migrated to America. Each hope for their daughter’s success and pray that they will not experience the hardships faced in China. One mother, Suyuan, imparts her knowledge on her daughter through stories. The American culture influences her daughter, Jing Mei, to such a degree that it is hard for Jing Mei to understand her mothers culture and life lessons. Yet it is not until Jing Mei realizes that the key to understanding who her†¦show more content†¦Suyuan rejects the women-repressive Chinese traditions when she tells her daughter that she believed you could be anything you want to be in America (Tan 141). Suyuan continually tells Jing Mei her Kweilin story as a child, the story of the origins of the Joy Luck Club as well as her mothers past hardships. Yet despite the importance of the story and the events constituting the story to Suyuan, Jing Mei never thought [her] mothers Kweilin story was anything but a Chinese fairy tale (Tan 12). The story would have the same meaning to Jing Mei as if she were being told the story of Sleeping Beauty, or some other American bedtime story. When Jing Mei recognizes the similarities between her mother and herself she begins to understand not only her mother but herself as well. There are subtle connections and likenesses from the beginning between Jing Mei and her mother that Jing Mei does not see. The book commences with Jing Mei taking her mothers place at the mah jong table, creating a similarity between them from the beginning. Suyuan dies two months before the start of the book, and therefore is not able to tell the stories. Jing Mei has learned and must tell her stories in her place, forming another parallelism between mother and daughter. Because Suyuan is dead, Jing Mei must act in place of her mother when she goes to meet her Chinese sisters in China. Throughout the book Jing Mei takes the place of Suyuan, showing she and her motherShow MoreRelated The Search for Identity in Amy Tans The Joy Luck Club Essay3982 Words   |  16 PagesThe Search for Identity in The Joy Luck Club  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   When Chinese immigrants enter the United States of America, it is evident from the start that they are in a world far different than their homeland. Face to face with a dominant culture that often times acts and thinks in ways contrary to their previous lives, immigrants are on a difficult path of attempting to become an American. Chinese immigrants find themselves often caught between two worlds: the old world of structured, traditionalRead More Search for Identity in Amy Tans The Joy Luck Club Essay examples848 Words   |  4 Pages nbsp;Search for Identity in The Joy Luck Clubnbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Imagine, a daughter not knowing her own mother! And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English. (Tan 40-41) Amy Tan frames The Joy Luck Club with Jing-meiRead More Chinese and American Cultures Essay example4350 Words   |  18 PagesChinese and American Cultures Chinese-Americans authors Amy Tan and Gish Jen have both grappled with the idea of mixed identity in America. For them, a generational problem develops over time, and cultural displacement occurs as family lines expand. While this is not the problem in and of itself, indeed, it is natural for current culture to gain foothold over distant culture, it serves as the backdrop for the disorientation that occurs between generations. In their novels, Tan and Jen pinpoint