Joy Luck Club Essay

Based on a book of the same name published by Amy Tan, The Joy fortune Club tells the stories of four Chinese women and their daughters who were increase in America. While the snap focuses a great deal on the relationships between the comes and daughters and how their stories intertwine, as surface as the history of each person and the trials they went through both in mainland China and America, it similarly showcases some Chinese cultural and religious beliefs.Religion, folktales, conclusion, and bigo probe were all prevalent in much of the daily lives of the women, shaping how they interacted with and raised their individual children as wholesome as how they viewed themselves. In this paper, I will be focusing on how the different beliefs and customs were displayed in the train and how their lives were formed around and changes by them. Some of the major stylistic elements of the icon were the presence of wear off jewelry on most of the women and the bright chromatic c olor that was frequently worn on clothes or decorating rooms. tearing stands as a symbol of fortune and joy in China, and is try-on for The Joy Luck Club, and reflects the ingrained superstition in the society. Jade in Chinese culture has a long history dating spine to 5000 B. C. Confucius claimed that there argon eleven virtues in male plug, and that The reinvigorated have likened jade to virtue. For them, its polish and brilliancy represent the whole of purity its perfect parsimony and extreme hardness represent the sureness of intelligence its angles, which do non cut, although they seem sharp, represent justice the pure and prolonged sound, which it gives forth when ane strikes it, represents music.Its color represents loyalty its interior flaws, always showing themselves through the transparency, peal to mind sincerity its iridescent brightness represents heaven its admirable substance, natural of mountain and of water, represents the earth. Used alone without ornament ation it represents chastity. The price that the entire military personnel attaches to it represents the truth. To support these comparisons, the Book of Verse says When I think of a wise man, his merits appear to be like jade. In addition, there is a Chinese saying that states Gold has a value jade is invaluable. Jade also symbolizes purity, grace, and beauty, and sometimes de noned power in historical times as well as being the title for the Jade Emperor, who was the Supreme Deity of Taoism. In a pivotal moment of the movie, daughter June is given a jade necklace that has been passed d ingest generations by her mother Suyuan. This symbolizes both her mothers relish and belief in her and shows how highly valued familial ties are in Chinese culture.The ties that bind family together in Chinese society jackpot be seen very strongly throughout The Joy Luck Club. in that respect were some conflicting values seen between the women raised in China and their daughters raised in Ameri ca. This dichotomy helped to show how even though they were in America, the mothers expected the girls to understand and obey them following the rules of Chinese requirements. For example, as a child Waverly gets into an argument with her mother in which her mother states, There are only two amiables of children those who are obedient, and those with make mind.And only one kind of child live in this house. Obedient kind. Waverly sees this as an unfair imposition upon who she is as an individual, while her mother simply accepts this as a item of how life and family is. Even through the disagreements and understandings, the girls exhibit strong traits of their mothers, which are not just hinged on how they are raised. Rather than just focusing on the nurture aspect, the mothers believed powerfully in olfactory modalitys and curses, and their daughters followed them to some extent.Waverly believes that words her mother said to her cursed her as a child because she allowed them to undermine her own individual beliefs in herself. This is some intimacy that I found very interesting, as the volume of the Western world would explain that away with psychology while the eastern appeared to believe that she might actually be cursed, but the curse wasnt permanent. In another case, Ying-Ying believes that her daughter is emotionally irresolute because she had no spirit of her own to give Lena when she was born, and this leads her to make many of the mistakes that Ying-Ying did.This belief also seen in An-Meis mother, who committed suicide to protect her daughter and believed that the remnants of her own weak soul would pass to her daughter and make her stronger. The superstitions of the family she was wed into were detailed, as the hubby believed that An-Meis mother may return to haunt him, and thus An-Mei was saved by her roots. I found the parallels between Western and Chinese culture here to be very interesting, as the younger girls tried to rive themselves and integrate their upbringing with their mothers expectations.Tradition and ancestor veneration was clearly be in several cases, the most obvious of which being the case of Lindos marriage. Trapped and unable to properly conceive a child, she tricks her husbands family into believing that the matchmaker had made a mistake by assaying that the ancestor appeared to her and threatened her because another girl in the household was pregnant with his unearthly child, and was fated by the ancestors to marry Lindos own husband. Through the stimulant of duty to the ancestors, Lindo is able to escape her marriage.An-Meis mother fell defeat to the belief of tradition she tried to save her own mother in turn by feeding her soup with her own flesh in it, because in the cultural context sacrificing the pain of her flesh was the honorable thing to do, even though she had been disowned by her family. This scene made me wonder wherefore the sense of duty only seemed to run from the current ge neration to their own ancestors, rather than from the older family towards the younger generations.The importance of tradition led the mothers to try and teach their children to desire nothingswallow pain and eat their curl of bitterness, even as they attempted to provide their daughters with the means to ease up out of the cycle while still honoring beliefs. There was so much amazing symbolism and cultural representation, both Chinese and American, in The Joy Luck Club. The hopes that each of the women had resting on their children, the religious and cultural beliefs that they carried with them, and the qualification exhibited by each of the women astounded me, and I hope to learn more than about Chinese faith in the future.