Joy Luck Club

ENGL 1302
Joy Luck Club Essay
An Analysis of “The Joy Luck Club”
In this essay, I seek to analyze the miscommunication between a mother and a daughter from Amy Tan’s book, “The Joy Luck Club.” In the three stories I will be using taken from the collective works, the two primary characters are Lindo Jong, the mother, and her daughter, Waverly Jong. Lindo is a traditional Chinese mother attempting to live in a Chinese community but playing by American rules. She is extremely cynical and demands respect and constant obedience from her daughter Waverly as well as her two sons. Waverly is more American in mindset, seeing her community and family as a member and yet aware of the differences between her lifestyle and the average American one. These two characters’ personalities and perspectives on life conflict in each story, bringing them to strategize and change as people as they continue to interact over time.
The first story, The Rules of the Game, focuses mostly on Waverly as she discovers the game of chess. As she learns to play, she balances new and interesting rules with the sage set-in-stone advice of her mother: “Wise guy, he not go against wind. In Chinese we say, Come from South-blow with wind-poom!- North will Follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen.”(89) These words were given to Waverly in an attempt to teach her how to win what she wants through patience and strategizing. While her mother attempts to guide her, Waverly is busy breaking out of her shell, her only motivation seeming to be her next victory. As she grows as a person, she takes the knowledge that her mother will reward her for being successful and using it to her advantage, “A little knowledge withheld is a great advantage one should store for future use.” She and her mother are greatly conflicted here, with Waverly wanting more success for her own joy and satisfaction and Lindo wanting her to be successful for success’ sake. Though they aim for similar goals, they cannot see each other’s views. The second story takes place many years later, with Waverly newly engaged to Rich Schields and attempting to plan how to tell her mother. Waverly states that she hates “her ability to make me see black where there was once white, white where there was once black.”(169) Despite how Waverly may see something, once she tells her mother and hears the criticism that follows, she can never see it quite the same. This constant stream of negativity makes Waverly crave approval from her mother, all the while making her afraid to make a decision without it, as said by “I always became the pawn. I could only run away. And she was the queen, able to move in all directions…” Her mother, painted the villain and the leader, wishes all the time for her daughter to open up to her. She notes that her daughter is getting married through observation but does not comment because Waverly did not bring it up. The misunderstanding here is that Waverly thinks her mother is uninterested and disapproving of everything in her life, while Lindo simply “waited patiently for her daughter to invite her back in.” (184)