Preview

Culture Influence In The Joy Luck Club

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
279 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Culture Influence In The Joy Luck Club
Culture Influence in the Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club is a fictional novel by Amy Tan that unfolds the lives of four Chinese families and their American-born daughters. The story is portrayed in a diary-like fashion and it follows the lives and personal accounts of the Woo, Hsu, Jong, and St. Clair families. Culture is significant and it influences the story in many ways.

The Chinese and American cultures clash in this particular novel. The Chinese culture is represented as a high- context culture. A high-text culture is one in which people can understand without saying or revealing too much information. In such cultures people are expected to behave appropriately and respect others. Also, people in high-context cultures set the bar

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    There were many issues in The Joy Luck Club, but one issue that caught attention was the gender expectations and the limit to interracial marriage that the Chinese woman had to follow. The characters in the novel portrayed many gender expectation like, doing all the cooking, cleaning, staying home and looking after their families. In the novel, it was normal for the female to do all the stereotypical roles that girls were required to do. Also, some women were forced to marry strange men that they have not met before because marriages were arranged in China but they were also carefully considered. Additionally, the importance of marrying another chinese man lead to not able to marry another race other than Chinese. Further into the modern…

    • 178 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Many Chinese mothers and Americanized daughters have trouble understanding each other and this problem can only be solved through accepting each other's values and their differences. In the chapter,Two Kinds, from the book "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan exposes the values of a Chinese mother, Suyuan and her Americanized daughter, Jing-mei about living in America. After seeing many articles and stories about prodigies, Suyuan innocently believes her daughter can be one too. At first, Jing-mei was ecstatic about the idea but through constant disappointment from her mother, Jing-mei became idiotically determined to disappoint her mother even more. Pursuing this further, Suyuan thought Jing-mei can be a virtuoso pianist…

    • 110 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Joy Luck club centers on four, middle-aged, Chinese immigrants, Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair. Although the relationships that exist between each of the four women are important, it is the exploration into each woman’s relationship with her first generation daughter that is central to the plot line. Through this exploration, the generational and cultural gaps that exist between the each of the women and their daughters are exposed; allowing several interesting connections to course material to be made.…

    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Amy Tan portrays Lindo Jong, mother of Waverly Jong, as a brave, intelligent woman who uses her wit in order to get out of a restrained marriage. She shows an unwavering loyalty to her family as she sacrifices her, “life to keep [her] parents promise,” (42). Lindo deals with the harassment from her in-laws, as well as the childlike nature of her husband. She eventually receives abuse from her own daughter when she doesn’t fit the expectations of both Waverly and the society. Even through all these obstructions in her life, by being loyal, courageous, intelligent, and strong, she shows all the characteristics of the Chinese zodiac animal, the horse. In the Chinese culture, the horse symbolizes power and grace, as well as strength and freedom,…

    • 1137 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Harper Lee’s context help shape the complex ideas and themes in the novel, and force the audience to realise the truth behind personal morality.…

    • 81 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Firstis when the mother mutters in Chinese about how Jing Mei, her daughter, would be famous if she had as much talent as she has temper. The culture clash in this example is how the mother speaks in Chinese even though they live in the United States of America but the theme is shown by how the mother keeps pushing her child and is brutally honest with her. Family is always pushing towards each other, even if it means to be blunt. Second is how the mother believes that you can be anything you want to be in America and has all her hope in it because she left some of her family behind in China. The culture clash of becoming anything you want in America unlike China shows the theme by how the mother wants what is best for her daughter even if it means not being the best for her. Lastly is when the mother yells in Chinese at Jing Mei about how there are only two types of daughters, an obedient one and one who follows their own mind and how there is only room for the obedient one. This shows culture clash by how in China, where the mother grew up, you were expected to be obedient but in America you are taught to follow your own mind. The theme is shown through this by how the mother wants what is best for her daughter and is trying to help her daughter do her best. The theme of family is very prominent throughout “Two Kinds” and is defiantly the theme the story revolves…

    • 1072 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The central theme in the book “The Joy Luck Club” is about the culture clash between two generations, the Americanized daughters growing up under a strong influence of their Asian-American mothers. These conflicts have smothered their relationships and make them be on the opposite sides in almost perceptions. However, it is just the outer face of the problems. When we see the issues in the lens of cultural-relativism perspectives, we will realize the true meanings of scenarios happening in their intergenerational families.…

    • 810 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Amy Tan is a Chinese-American and she is the author of the novel The Joy Luck Club. Suyuan Woo, An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong and Ying-ying St. Clair are in The Joy Luck Club. The novel is about these four different characters and their relationships with their daughters.…

    • 479 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The introduction to multicultural literature into the broad world of differing walks of life, the reader may be surprised by the similarities between the cultures as well as the differences. Cultures are as eclectic as we are as individuals, each with their own quirks, intricacies, and uniqueness that inspires individuality regarding how the vast differences between cultures correlate to our own. Upon deeper examination of multicultural literature, however; we are also given the privilege to walk the path of the individual from whose perspective we are privy to through the written word. As many have wished at one point or another to know and understand what a particular individual is thinking, through reading multicultural literature, the opportunity to have such an experience and glean copious amounts of information. From the subtlest detail to major political agendas to personality quirks derived from current or past social standards of that culture. Although differences in points of view can prohibit understanding upon first contact greater exposure to literature from various cultures, one can find relation within themselves. One can empathize and humanize the characters that ultimately open the door to greater understanding of how a culture operates as well as attain the ability to relate those experiences to one’s own.…

    • 1453 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Joy Luck Club Symbolism

    • 312 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Author of the book The Joy Luck Club is written by American author Amy Tan. Born in China on February 19, 1952 in Oakland, California to her parents John and Daisy. She was a part of the first generation of Asian Americans.…

    • 312 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Joy Luck Club

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Traditions, heritage and culture are three of the most important aspects of Chinese culture. Passed down from mother to daughter, these traditions are expected to carry on for years to come. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, daughters Waverly, Lena, Rose and June thoughts about their culture are congested by Americanization while on their quests towards self-actualization. Each daughter struggles to find balance between Chinese heritage and American values through marriage and professional careers.…

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    People all around the world have different communication styles based on their culture legacies. I, too, am affected by my Chinese culture when I communicate with others. In the chapter “The Ethnic Theory on Plane Crashes” in Outlier, author Malcolm Gladwell discusses the importance of cultural legacy on communication. Many of the plane crashes can be explained with “mitigated speech” by plane officers, meaning “any attempt to downplay or sugarcoat the meaning of what is being said” (194). People’s cultural legacies significantly influence a person’s ability to communicate effectively with other people, and thus might cause misunderstandings and tragedies.…

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go” (Hughes). In the texts Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, the main characters both have dreams for the future. The difference is what drives each character toward the dream. We learn from these stories that dreams can both positivelypositively and negatively affect people’s lives and relationships, depending on the motivation to pursue them.…

    • 429 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Olympics is a tradition that symbolizes strength, perseverance, and the uniting of nations, tracing all the way back to 776 BC. I find the Olympics by themselves very interesting, but when you add in the culture of a prominent country, I think it becomes so much more. After reading The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, the Chinese culture began to intrigue me; making the two together a great research paper topic. This was not my first topic though. I was sick the day my class chose theirs, so I ended up with "Communism in China". Although it was not ideal, I thought I could write a lot about it. The day after, the idea of "The Beijing Olympics" came to me. Since no one else had it yet, I believed…

    • 1567 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The cultural divide and interactions of the characters adaptation changes the outcome of how the characters think or act on different customs and beliefs. Silko’s tone of the story serves a statement tolerating other’s beliefs; when one respects another culture they seek closure within themselves and traditions from…

    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays