Gale - A Study Guide for Amy Tans The Joy Luck Club

Since this page cannot legibly accommodate all copyright notices, the acknowledgments constitute an extension of the copyright notice.

While every effort has been made to secure permission to reprint material and to ensure the reliability of the information presented in this publication, Gale Research neither guarantees the accuracy of the data contained herein nor assumes any responsibility for errors, omissions or discrepancies. Gale accepts no payment for listing; and inclusion in the publication of any organization, agency, institution, publication, service, or individual does not imply endorsement of the editors or publisher. Errors brought to the attention of the publisher and verified to the satisfaction of the publisher will be corrected in future editions.

This publication is a creative work fully protected by all applicable copyright laws, as well as by misappropriation, trade secret, unfair competition, and other applicable laws. The authors and editors of this work have added value to the underlying factual material herein through one or more of the following: unique and original selection, coordination, expression, arrangement, and classification of the information.

All rights to this publication will be vigorously defended.

Copyright 1997
Gale Research
835 Penobscot Building
645 Griswold St.
Detroit, Ml 48226-4094

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

ISBN 0-7876-1686-9
ISSN 1094-3552

Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5

Amy Tan

1989

The Joy Luck Club, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1989, presents the stories of four Chinese-immigrant women and their American-born daughters. Each of the four Chinese women has her own view of the world based on her experiences in China and wants to share that vision with her daughter. The daughters try to understand and appreciate their mothers' pasts, adapt to the American way of life, and win their mothers' acceptance. The book's name comes from the club formed in China by one of the mothers, Suyuan Woo, in order to lift her friends' spirits and distract them from their problems during the Japanese invasion. Suyuan continued the club when she came to the United Stateshoping to bring luck to her family and friends and finding joy in that hope.

Amy Tan wrote the Joy Luck Club to try to understand her own relationship with her mother. Tan's Chinese parents wanted Americanized children but expected them to think like Chinese. Tan found this particularly difficult as an adolescent. While the generational differences were like those experienced by other mothers and daughters, the cultural distinctions added another dimension. Thus, Tan wrote not only to sort out her cultural heritage but to learn how she and her mother could get along better.

Critics appreciate Tan's straightforward manner as well as the skill with which she talks about Chinese culture and mother/daughter relationships. Readers also love The Joy Luck Club: women of all ages identify with Tan's characters and their conflicts with their families, while men have an opportunity through this novel to better understand their own behaviors towards women. Any reader can appreciate Tan's humor, fairness, and objectivity.

Amy Tan began writing fiction as a distraction from her work as a technical writer. A self-proclaimed workaholic, Tan wanted to find a way to relax. She soon discovered that not only did she enjoy writing fiction as a hobby, she liked that it provided a way for her to think about and understand her life.

Tan was born in Oakland, California, in 1952. Her first-generation, Chinese-American parents, John and Daisy Tan, settled in Santa Clara, California. As an adolescent, Tan had difficulty accepting her Chinese heritage. She wanted to look like an Americanto be an American. At one point, she even slept with a clothespin on her nose, hoping to change its shape. She deliberately chose American over Chinese whenever she had the opportunity and asserted her independence in any way that she could. She dreamed of being a writer, while her parents saw her as a neurosurgeon and concert pianist.

The Tans lived in Santa Clara until first her father, then her brother, died of brain tumors. Mrs. Tan took Amy and her other brother to live in Switzerland. Amy became even more rebellious, dating a German who was associated with drug dealers and had serious mental problems. Her mother then took the children back to the United States, where Amy enrolled in a Baptist College in Oregon, majoring in pre-med. After just two semesters there, Amy went with her boyfriend back to California. There she attended San Jose City College as an English and linguistics major. Amy's mother did not speak to her for six months after this final act of rebellion.

The Joy Luck Club contains many autobiographical elements from Tan's life. Tan did not learn until she was fourteen that she has half-sisters from her mother's previous marriage. This sense of loss and her father's and brother's deaths are reflected in The Joy Luck Club in Suyuan Woo's loss of her twin daughters and her death. In addition, Tan has always felt that she disappointed her mother by not becoming a doctor. Like Tan, the novel's Jing-mei can not compare to Waverly Jong, the highly successful daughter of a friend of Jing-mei's mother. These and other examples from Tan's personal life lend a sensibility and sensitivity to her novel that allow the reader to experience vicariously,death and solace, loss and reconciliation, disillusionment and hope.

The Joy Luck Club consists of sixteen inter-locking stories about the lives of four Chinese immigrant women and their four American-born daughters. In 1949, the four immigrants meet at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco and agree to continue to meet to play mah jong. They call their mah jong group the Joy Luck Club. The stories told in this novel revolve around the Joy Luck Club women and their daughters.

In "The Joy Luck Club," Jing-Mei Woo remembers her recently deceased mother, Suyuan Woo, who founded the Joy Luck Club. During World War II, Suyuan Woo escapes from Kweilin on foot before the Japanese invade the city. The difficulty of the escape forces Suyuan to abandon her two twin baby girls. At the first mah jong meeting after Suyuan Woo's funeral, the Joy Luck Club "aunts" inform Jing-Mei that the twin girls are alive in China and suggest that she visit her half-sisters to bring them the news of the death of Suyuan.

The childhood of An-Mei Hsu, one of the older women, is related in "Scar." In the story, An-Mei Hsu's mother leaves her family to become a concubine of Wu Tsing, a rich merchant. An-Mei is brought up by her grandmother, Popo. In an attempt to heal Popo on her deathbed, An-Mei's mother returns to cut off a piece of flesh from her own arm to make soup for Popo, but Popo still dies.