The Joy Luck Club
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| Author | Amy Tan |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | G. P. Putnam's Sons |
| Released | 1989 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback and Paperback) |
| Pages | 288 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-399-13420-4 |
For the film, see The Joy Luck Club (film)
The Joy Luck Club (1989) is a best-selling novel written by Amy Tan. It focuses on four Chinese-American immigrant families who start a club known as "the Joy Luck Club," playing the Chinese game of Mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods. There are sixteen chapters divided into four sections, and each woman, both mothers and daughters, (with the exception of one mother, Suyuan Woo, who dies before the novel opens) share stories about their lives in the form of vignettes. While The Joy Luck Club was usually described as a novel by critics, to Tan it is a collection of short stories.[citation needed]
In 1993, the novel was adapted into a feature film directed by Wayne Wang and starring Ming-Na, Lauren Tom, Tamlyn Tomita, France Nuyen, Rosalind Chao, Mei Juan Xi, Kieu Chinh, Tsai Chin, Lisa Lu, and Vivian Wu. The screenplay was written by Amy Tan and Ronald Bass.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
As the novel opens Jing-Mei "June" Woo has just lost her mother, Suyuan, to an aneurysm. She is asked by her mother's three friends to take Suyuan's place in their Mah-Jong foursome and their 'Joy Luck Club.' The novel unfolds with interspersed chapters by each of the three remaining members of the Club and their American-born daughters. Lindo and Waverly Jong began their war over Waverly's childhood chess stardom and the effects it has on every aspect of Waverly's adult life. An-Mei Hsu recounts the tragedy that gave her strength, and worries that her daughter, Rose, lacks the same determination. Lena St. Clair tries to care for her eccentric mother, while her mother recounts a secret history that has allowed her to see more deeply than her daughter imagines. Through it all, June Woo tries to piece together the stories that her own mother can no longer tell, and to be faithful to her mother's memory despite their sometimes rocky relationship.
[edit] Criticism
The novel and subsequent film have come under fire for the negative portrayal of Chinese males.
[edit] Characters
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
[edit] Mothers
- Suyuan Woo
- During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Suyuan lived in the Chinese town of Kweilin (Guilin) while her husband at the time served as an officer in Chungking (Chongqing). She founded the original Joy Luck Club with three friends in Kweilin to give them all something to take their minds off the war. On the day of the Japanese invasion, Suyuan was forced to leave her house with nothing but a bag of clothes, a bag of food, and her twin baby daughters.
- During the long trek, she was forced to abandon both bags. Exhausted and fearing that she is near death, Suyuan leaves her daughters under a tree in hopes that they might be rescued. She crawls off expecting to die, but is rescued herself. Suyuan is unable to learn what became of her daughters. She later remarries, comes to America, forms a new Joy Luck Club, and has more children, but her abandonment of the twin girls haunts her for the rest of her life. After many years Suyuan does learn what happened to the twins, but dies of a brain aneurysm before she is able to go to China and meet them. It is her American-born daughter Jing-mei who will fulfill her long-cherished wish of reuniting with the twins.
- As Suyuan dies before the novel begins, her history is told by Jing-mei, based on what Jing-mei remembers of her mother's stories and what the other members of the Joy Luck Club tell her.
- An-mei Hsu
- An-mei spent most of her early years being raised by grandparents. Her widowed mother shocked the family by becoming a concubine to a wealthy man after her first husband's death. After An-mei's grandmother dies, she goes to live with her mother in the home of her mother's new husband, Wu-Tsing. An-Mei learns that her mother became Wu-Tsing's concubine through the manipulations of his favorite concubine, called Second Wife in the text. Second Wife arranged for An-mei's mother, still in mourning for her husband, to be raped by Wu-Tsing. She then claimed that Wu-Tsing had been seduced by the faithless widow. Humiliated, An-mei's mother had no choice but to marry Wu-Tsing and become his fourth wife. She later loses her baby son to Second Wife, who claims the boy as her own child. Second Wife also tries to turn An-mei against her mother.
- Wu-Tsing is a superstitious man, and Second Wife takes advantage of this by making false suicide attempts and threatening to haunt him as a ghost if he does not let her have her way. According to Chinese tradition, a person's soul comes back after three days to settle scores with the living. Wu-Tsing is afraid to face the ghost of an angry wife. After Second Wife uses a suicide attempt to prevent An-mei and her mother from getting their own household, An-mei's mother commits suicide herself. She times her death so that her soul would be due to return on the first day of the new year, a day when all debts must be settled lest the debtor suffer great misfortune. With this in mind, Wu-Tsing promises to treat his fourth wife's children, including An-mei, as if they were his own by an honored first wife.
- An-mei later goes to America, marries, and has seven children. Tragically, her youngest son Bing dies in a drowning accident as a child.
- Lindo Jong
- Lindo is a strong-willed woman, a trait her daughter Waverly attributes to her having been born in the year of the Horse. When Lindo was only twelve, she was forced to move in with a neighbor's young son, Huang Tyan Yu. She married him when she was sixteen. She soon realized that her husband was just a little boy and had no sexual interest in her. Lindo began to care for her husband as a brother, but her cruel mother-in-law expected Lindo to produce a grandson soon. She restricted Lindo's activities, eventually ordering her to remain on bed rest until she could conceive and deliver a child.
- Determined to escape this situation, Lindo carefully observes the other people in the household and eventually forms a clever plan to escape her marriage without dishonor. She manages to convince her young husband's family that he was actually fated to marry another woman, and that her marriage to Huang Tyan Yu will only bring bad luck to the family.
- Freed of her first marriage, Lindo decides to immigrate to America. She marries a Chinese-American man named Tin Jong and has three children: sons Winston and Vincent, and daughter Waverly.
- Lindo experiences regret over losing some of her Chinese identity by living so long in America (she is treated like a tourist on a visit to China), and expresses concern that Waverly's American upbringing has caused a barrier between them.
- Ying-Ying St. Clair
- Ying-Ying was born in the year of the Tiger, a ferocious animal, but was told by her wealthy family that girls should be meek and gentle. She develops a passive, fatalistic personality and learns to repress her own feelings. Ying-Ying marries a vulgar playboy named Lin Xiao, not out of love, but because she believes this is her fate. After their marriage, her husband becomes abusive and openly carries on affairs with other women. Ying-Ying discovers she is pregnant at about the same time her husband abandons her for an opera singer. She takes revenge by aborting their only son and goes to live with poor relatives in the country. After 10 years, she decides to move to the city.
- While working in the city, Ying-Ying meets an American man named Clifford St. Clair. He falls in love with her, but Ying-Ying finds herself incapable of strong emotion and cannot return his love. He courts her for a full 4 years before she agrees to marry him after learning that Lin Xiao has died, which she took as the proper sign to move on. She allows him to control most aspects of her life, translating her words and actions, and even changing her name to "Betty." Ying-Ying and Clifford have a daughter, Lena.
- Ying-Ying is horrified when she realizes that Lena has inherited her behaviors and trapped herself in a loveless marriage. She finally tells her daughter her own history to convince her that she must take control of her own life.
[edit] Daughters
- Jing-mei "June" Woo
- Jing-mei has never fully understood her mother and seems directionless in life. At the beginning of the novel, June is chosen to replace her mother's seat in the Joy Luck Club after her mother's death. At the end of the novel, June is still trying to deal with her mother's death, and she visits China to see two half-sisters whom her mother had been forced to abandon when the Japanese attacked China.
- June narrates the largest number of stories, narrating both her own stories and speaking as best she can for her mother. June is caught between traditional China and modern America. As seen in the first story, June often finds herself not knowing what to do in the face of more traditional, older Chinese, like her mother's friends from the Joy Luck Club. Although most of the women in the book are friends with one another, June and Waverly have never gotten along. They were childhood rivals, and even as adults Waverly insults and criticizes June in front of their parents. June suffers from feelings of inferiority, but begins to regain her confidence once she returns to playing the piano, a hobby she abandoned as a child.
- Rose Hsu Jordan
- Rose had always been held responsible for her younger siblings (Matthew, Mark, Luke and Bing), until a family trip where her youngest brother Bing drowned. Rose always try her best to please her husband, Ted, and be a perfect mother for their young daughter. Rose is shocked when she learns that Ted has been having an affair with another woman and that he wants a divorce. He even wants to sell their house, although Rose hoped to continue living there. Yet after her mother tells her the story of Rose's maternal grandmother, who never knew worth until death, the formerly weak-willed Rose becomes determined to assert herself. When Ted comes for the divorce papers, she tells him that he can't just throw her out of his life, comparing herself to weeds in his garden, once so beloved, now unkempt and filthy. She wants to hire a good lawyer and fight for possession of the house.
- Waverly Jong
- Waverly is an independent-minded and intelligent woman, but is annoyed by her mother's constant criticism. Well into her adult life, she finds herself restrained by her subconscious fear of letting her mother down. She and June were childhood rivals, and their mothers often compared their accomplishments. Waverly was a chess prodigy and gained some fame for her skill at the game, but quit playing in order to get back at her mother after an argument. When Waverly later tried to take up chess again, she found that she had lost her talent. Waverly lives with her Caucasian boyfriend, Rich. Although her mother doesn't approve of Rich, Waverly still plans on marrying him. Waverly also has a daughter, Shoshana, from a previous marriage.
- Lena St. Clair
- Lena was born to an Irish-American father and a Chinese mother. Her mother has the ability to predict things that occur in their family before they happen. Lena's husband, Harold, is a Caucasian man who demands financial "equality" in their marriage. They are co-workers, but Lena is an associate while Harold is a partner so he has a larger salary than she does. However, he insists that all household expenses be divided equally between them. A visit from Lena's mother leads her to contemplate whether she truly wants to stay with Harold. When an unstable end table (built by Harold) falls over, breaking the vase that was standing on it, Lena begins to realize how passive she has become. She had foreseen that the table would fall (her mother had even warned her about it), but had done nothing to prevent the vase from breaking.
[edit] Table of contents
(Name of chapter is followed by the name of the narrator whose perspective is used for that chapter)
[edit] Feathers from a Thousand Li Away
- "The Joy Luck Club," Jing-mei "June" Woo
- "Scar," An-Mei Hsu
- "The Red Candle," Lindo Jong
- "The Moon Lady," Ying-Ying St. Clair
[edit] The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates
- "Rules of the Game," Waverly Jong
- "The Voice from the Wall," Lena St. Clair
- "Half and Half," Rose Hsu Jordan
- "Two Kinds," Jing-mei "June" Woo
[edit] American Translation
- "Rice Husband," Lena St. Clair
- "Four Directions," Waverly Jong
- "Without Wood," Rose Hsu Jordan
- "Best Quality," Jing-mei "June" Woo
[edit] Queen Mother of the Western Skies
- "Magpies," An-mei Hsu
- "Waiting Between the Trees," Ying-Ying St. Clair
- "Double Face," Lindo Jong
- "A Pair of Tickets," Jing-mei "June" Woo
[edit] External links
- Teacher's Guide at Random House
