Generational Differences and Cultural Gaps

¶ … generational differences and cultural gaps between the mothers and daughters lead the characters to struggle between their heritage and individual identities. One of the main themes of this touching novel is the struggle between the mothers and daughters to understand each other. The new generation of immigrants does not understand their parents' ties to the past and their homeland, and the older generation does not understand their children's disinterest. This struggle continues throughout the novel, and it indicates the cultural gaps that exist in many immigrant families today.

Throughout the novel, the narrator struggles with her own identity and that of her Chinese family. Tan introduces this theme very early in the novel. She writes, "In those days, before my mother told me her Kweilin story, I imagined Joy Luck was a shameful Chinese custom, like the secret gathering of the Ku Klux Klan or the tom-tom dances of TV Indians preparing for war" (Tan 31). Later she makes the gap between mother and daughter even clearer. She writes, "My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other's meaning and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more" (Tan 46). She also notes that they spoke together in two different languages, Chinese and English, adding nuances and meanings to their sentences that may not have been there at all.

June and her mother were not the only estranged families in the book. She sees the same thing in the other women of the Joy Luck Club and their daughters. Tan states, "In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America" (Tan 51). The women are far removed from their Americanized daughters, and they know it. As June joins the Club, she fears that it will have no meaning in her life, and that the customs the women hang on to are old and outmoded.

Each of the four daughters has their own sections of the book, and they all suffer from the same problems and lack of identity. Their families have all suffered much, and yet the daughters have not seemed to learn from their families or their trials. The mothers all expect much of their daughters, and often the daughters simply cannot live up to their expectations. June's mother wants her to be a "prodigy," but June has other ideas, and her mother does not understand that she cannot force her daughter to be something she is not. Tan writes, "Why don't you like me the way I am? I'm not a genius! I can't play the piano. And even if I could, I wouldn't go on TV if you paid me a million dollars!' I cried" (Tan 200). The Chinese mothers all have incredibly detailed dreams about their daughters and their success, and most of them are disappointed by their daughters in one way or another. They look at their daughters as an extension of themselves and their identity, and when their daughters fail, they feel they have failed, as well. Americans do not put as much pressure on their children, and so, the American-born daughters feel resentment and anger at their mothers, which leads to their estrangements and misunderstandings.

Sadly, the rift between June and her mother is one of the greatest in the book. Pushed too far, she becomes her mother's worst nightmare, an underachiever. Tan says, "It was not the only disappointment my mother felt in me. In the years that followed, I failed her so many times, each time asserting my own will, my right to fall short of expectations. I didn't get straight as. I didn't become class president. I didn't get into Stanford. I dropped out of college" (Tan 210). June is working just as hard to displease her mother as other children work to please their parents, and it is because of the gap between them, both culture and identity. June is an American first, and her mother is still Chinese first, and the two cultures do not mesh effectively, or even neatly.

It is almost amazing how much the daughters do not know about Chinese culture. At one point, one of the mothers' uses Feng Shui principles, telling her daughter she cannot hang a mirror at the foot of her bed, it is a bad omen. A literary critic writes, "According the feng shui principles, a mirror 'acts as a constant energy reflector and will be sending [a] a stream of intensified power into the space over and around [the] bed, day and night" (Hamilton). The mother instinctively knows these Chinese principles, and the daughter has no idea. It is as if the daughter and mother grew up in two different worlds, and essentially they have, which drives a wedge between them and creates misunderstandings and resentments. Critic Hamilton continues, the mother is incapable of translating her worldview into 'perfect American English,' so the daughter's comprehension remains flawed, partial, incomplete" (Hamilton). Their relationship is just as flawed, partial, and incomplete, as well.

The novel shows the difficulties facing two generations of immigrant families, and shows how vastly different the values and beliefs are between the women and their two native countries. Critic Patricia L. Hamilton writes, "Tan used the contrast between the mothers' and daughters' beliefs and values to show the difficulties first-generation immigrants face in transmitting their native culture to their offspring" (Hamilton). It is sad that the girls do not understand their native culture, but that is partly the mothers' fault, because they do not communicate effectively with their daughters. It is as if they somehow think their daughters will just "know" the things they know, but of course, the do not. They cannot know these things without the input of their mothers, but their mothers are not good communicators, and sometimes, they do not even try to point out the meanings and beliefs, they just expect their daughters to know and understand.

Each of the girls grows up with their own set of problems because of their relationships with their mothers. Lena's mother is always finding fault with everything, and Lena has never felt she deserved anything as a result. Tan writes, "All I can remember is how awfully lucky I felt, and consequently how worried I was that all this undeserved good fortune would someday slip away" (Tan 230). Unconsciously, she is mimicking her mother's finding fault with everything, and she allows it to color and cool her own relationships.

The same is true of Waverly, the chess champion who still cannot communicate with her mother, either. Tan writes, "My mother knows how to hit a nerve. And the pain I feel is worse than any other kind of misery. Because what she does always comes as a shock, exactly like an electric jolt, that grounds itself permanently in my memory" (Tan 253). This indicates how important these relationships are to the women, and how devastating they can be, as well. Each woman wraps her identity in gaining approval from her mother, but their mothers are often incapable of giving their approval, and so, their relationships are disappointing and fraught with stress and misunderstanding. The mothers' stories, however, show how much they have lived through, and how much their daughters really do not understand about their mothers.