The joy luck club themes and cultural identity

Joy Luck Club

Assimilation in the "Joy Luck Club"

The Joy Luck Club describes the experiences of four women who emigrated from mainland China to the United States. These women get together to play Mahjong and reminisce about their life experiences. All four have experienced horrible atrocities in mainland China, which have affected their relationships with their American born daughters. The Joy Luck Club is about struggles faced by Chinese-Americans in their quest to assimilate and become a part of the fabric of America.

The mother's experiences in the film serve to compare and contrast the assimilation experiences of themselves. The focus of the story is on how the experiences of the mothers affect the daughters and their sense of identity as Chinese-Americans. Through examining the mothers, one can gain insight as to how they cope with the process of assimilation. There are many different reactions and opinions regarding the struggle to maintain ties with their ancestral identity and to cope with life in the new land. Each of the women displays a different set of stereotypical ideals and traits that are associated with Chinese women. The following will examine the topic of assimilation through character analysis.

Character Analysis

Suyuan Woo lives in Guilin with her white husband, who served as an officer in Chongqing. She is the originator of the Joy Luck Club in mainland China as a means to cope with the Second Sino-Japanese War. When the Japanese invaded, Suyuan had to leave with nothing but a bag of clothes, a bag of food, and her twin baby daughters. During the journey, times get tough and she leaves her two daughters under a tree hoping that they may be rescued. She is later rescued comes to American, remarries and has more children.

The abandonment of her children forms a key to understanding Suyuan's assimilation experiences. For Suyuan, China holds deep heart-ache and regret. America meant a new beginning and the ability to start her life over. Her story is related to the audience through Jing-mei, as Suyuan dies early in the plot. Suyuan's story is one of many tragic endings. Jing-mer, Suyuan's daughter cannot find her own direction, a problem that affects the children of many immigrants from different cultures. They are torn between their traditional heritage, which is distant, and the culture of their birth, which is close at hand. This struggle affects many 1st generation offspring of immigrants. They wish to honor their parent by keeping some of the old traditions, but their heart may not be completely in them. They are torn between two worlds, more so than the generations that follow them.

An-mei is raised by her grandparents in her early years. Through her story, we learn many Chinese superstitions, such as the ideal that when a person dies, their soul comes back for three days to settle any old issues with the living. an-Mei had life of dishonor in China, and like Suyuan started over with a new husband and children when she came to America. an-mei's story teaches the audience about traditional marriage roles in China, including formalize role of the first and second wife.

Rose Hsu Jordan is an-mei's daughter. She shows an independence and self-expression that is unusual for the traditional Chinese woman, She stands up to her husband, when her presents her divorce papers. She voices her opinion, rather than keeping it to herself in the traditional women's role. Her independence makes her appear to be highly assimilates, as this attitude and ability to express herself is not typical for the traditional Chinese woman. Her actions demonstrate a higher degree of assimilation than the other characters in the story.

Lindo Jong was only twelve when forced to move in with a neighbor's young son. She was pressured to have a child, but was too young. She did not wish to dishonor anyone, so she devised a play to escape her marriage. She came to America willingly after divorcing her first child-husband in China. She married a Chinese-American and had several sons and a daughter. Of the four women, she had lived the longest time in America. As a result, she was the most assimilated of the four women. She also had the help of her husband, who had been struggling with assimilation for quite some time.

Lindo is on a quest to reconnect with her lost Chinese identity. On a visit to mainland China, she is treated like a tourist by the locals. She struggles to connect with her native Chinese identity and to pass on these traits to her daughter. She realizes that her daughter is more American, than Chinese and fears that she will not remember her Chinese heritage in a positive way. Lindo's struggle serves the purpose of presenting the struggle that Chinese face with issues such as loss of identity. Not surprisingly, Lindo's daughter shows even more independence and American attitude than her mother.

Ying-ying is the most traditional of the Chinese women. She is meek and gentile, to the point of repressing her own feelings. Ying-Ying makes many decisions in her life because she believes it is her fate, but not necessarily what she wants. Ying-ying's marriage in China brings to light the amount of abuse towards women that it tolerated by the Chinese culture. Ying-ying meets an American, but she quickly falls into the weaker role, once again. She is the epitome of the fair and gentle Chinese wife, who knows that her place is beneath that of her husband.

This portrayal of the weak Chinese woman appears to be exaggerated at times, but it does get the point across about this stereotype and its prevalence in Chinese society. Ying-ying acts exactly as one would expect the perfect Chinese wife to act. Ying-ying also portrays the struggle to break free of this stereotypical role, as she is horrified to find that her daughter has taken on this role for herself. She wants her daughter to break free and to live a more independent life than the traditional Chinese feminine role will allow. Ying-ying demonstrates the psychological damage caused by the traditional Chinese role for women. Lena St. Clair, practically abandons her mother's traditional attitude and demands "equality" in the marriage.