The Theme Of Identity In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

We all want to be remembered, to leave some kind of legacy, something that we are known for. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan shows how Chinese immigrants, Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying Ying St. Clair try to leave their legacy with their American assimilated daughters. Whether that be through stories about their lives in China or lessons that they learned, they hope they can connect with the new generation.
One of the major themes embedded in this novel is that of identity. The mothers find it difficult to hold onto their culture and sense of heritage as they reside in America where they wish to benefit from the freedoms America has and escape the past and regrets of their native land. What they don’t anticipate is how difficult
Especially on how they should act and who they should be, what.( too much repetition of daughter) The feeling of struggling to remain themselves in the midst of others trying to change them. For example, one of the mothers, Lindo Jong, experiences a similar situation on the day of her arranged marriage. Her mother gave her off to the Huangs’ (her fiance's family) when she was twelve with nothing but a farewell wish of not disgracing her family. Lindo has no choice but to obey her mother when a flood destroys her family’s home leaving them bankrupt. Lindo has every intention to fulfill her mother’s wish and restore her family’s status. Unfortunately, her new family has different plans for her. They treat her like a servant while trying to change her and make her become something she has no desire to be. They almost succeed in breaking her spirit and she becomes discouraged. ”I had on a beautiful red dress, but what I saw was even more valuable. I was strong. I was pure. I had genuine thoughts inside that no one could see, that no one could ever take away from me... I made a promise to myself: I would always remember my parents’ wishes, but I would never forget myself.”(Tan 58) In this quote we can see how even though Lindo was discouraged, she was able to hold onto her inner identity.
When Jing-mei, Suyuan Woo’s daughter, was a child she always wanted to prove her mother wrong and fall short of her expectations. One of the expectations Suyuan had for Jing-mei was to become a talented pianist, but because Jing-mei was so set on not following her mom, she didn’t. She actually spent more time not trying to play piano then she did learning it. All throughout the book it seems like Jing-mei is never satisfying her mother in some way. Suyuan is a very strong and motivated women who created The Joy Luck Club and excels at mah-jong and it seems like Jing-mei is always living in her shadow, trying to live up to her mother’s legacy. When Suyuan dies, Jing-mei all of a sudden has to fill her shoes, not only by replacing her at the Joy Luck Club, but by stepping up to fulfill her mother’s greatest wish: to meet Suyuan’s twin daughters and tell them about Suyuan’s life. Much of this book is about Jing-mei’s path toward discovering her mother and discovering herself at the same