Literary Elements In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club is a combination of stories from the viewpoints of 4 different mothers, and 4 different daughters from the early 1900s. All of the mothers are chinese immigrants to america, and most of their stories are of their lives as children in China. The daughter’s stories tend to talk about their own, more down to earth, american wife stories. We get to the see the effects of a war on a nation, and the sorrow that ensues afterwards. The beginning and ends of the book ask, and the answer the most burning question throughout the stories. What happened to June’s sisters?

Amy Tan, the author of the book, had a very unique and distinct writing style throughout the book. The distinct thing that she did was make each chapter unique in the fact that they all took place from a different character’s point of view, and they also took place at different times. She also did not write the book to be in chronological order. This allows some questions to be raised that would have already been answered and known to the reader in most stories. Amy Tan also utilized many distinctive adjectives that feel the overall chinese feel of the book. She also utilized many chinese saying and proverbs such as “If you are greedy, what is inside you is what makes you always hungry” (Tan 18). Overall the style with which The Joy Luck Club was written gave it a very
The book forced you to go through stories and characters that you had no interest in before you could find the answers to someone else’s story. The pacing of the book was also atrocious, seeing as the time and setting of the book flip flopped between each chapter. This created an overall feeling of confusion and dissatisfaction. Despite having some interesting and unique elements, I would not recommend this book to be read. Maybe if the stories were rearranged then I might be able to recommend it, but as the story is now I can’t recommend