The Joy Luck Club
Literary Analysis
When it comes to literature, many novels display many different themes, and usually more than one theme in any given novel. Within these books, the theme is expressed in many different ways. In Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club she expressed the theme of family beautifully using protagonists, conflict, bildungsroman, and symbolism.
Family is something that is very important to all of the protagonists. In the novel, there are four sets of protagonists, a mother and a daughter. Each set talks about an argument or general problem that they have with the other, and in each story readers see how they resolved the issue. It is seen that some daughters look past their mother’s pickiness for the sake of having a nice dinner, like Waverly did with her mom Lindo (Tan 166). All four mothers and daughters try to understand each other and learn from the other, such as Rose whom learned that she can not just sit around and watch her marriage fail from her mother An-Mei (Tan 185). Throughout the novel, each if the protagonists expresses the importance of family.
According to Shu-Huei Henrickson, the theme of family is very important to the story line. She says that “While most mother/daughter texts portray the daughter's struggles for identity, what distinguishes Tan's text from other ethnic novels...is the foregrounding of the voices of mothers as well as of daughters” (“Joy”). This shows that family is important to the mothers and daughters because the novel is showing two different view points. Henrickson also says “almost all of the mothers' stories...begin with the mothers' concerns about the well-being of their daughters.” (“Joy”). Again, this just reiterates the fact that family is so important to the mothers that they often come off as over bearing and sometimes rude.
Throughout the novel conflicts are always present. Every new story is about a new conflict. A conflict that shows the theme of family is one between Waverly and her mom Lindo. In the chapter “Double Face”, Lindo is offended that her daughter is ashamed of her looks. Lindo thought that Waverly did not feel she was presentable to Waverly’s husband’s parents. While Lindo is genuinely hurt, she does not mention it to Waverly because she does not want to cause a scene. Lindo values the family bond she has with her daughter and does not want to jeopardize it. Other conflicts stem from the daughter’s reactions to their failing marriages and how the reactions upset their mothers. As An-Mei says, her daughter does nothing but watch her marriage fall apart. An-Mei says, “she lies down on a psychiatrist couch, squeezing tears out about the shame. And, I think, she will lie there until their is nothing more to fall...” (Tan 215). The way Rose reacts to her marriage failing causes a slight conflict, but because they are family they are able to work through it, and Rose even takes her mother’s advice.
On the topic of conflicts, Novels for Students says that “conflicts [in the novel] arise between each mother and daughter as a result of generation and cultural differences.” They go on to state that the mothers and daughters have different view points on many different issues, including marriage (“Joy”). But they pull together for the sake of their family. In fact, Novels for Students say that the mothers “fear the end of Chinese tradition in their families” because their daughters are forgetting their Chinese heritage for the sake of the American culture (“Joy”). This is just an other example of how cultural differences can effect the families. But in the end of the novel, they are all able to band together and realize their family stays true to one another.
Another way the theme of family is shown is through