The Joy Luck Club
The Joy Luck Club (1989) is a best-selling
novel written by
Amy Tan. It focuses on four
Chinese-American immigrant families who start a club known as "the Joy Luck Club," playing the Chinese game of
Mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods. There are twelve chapters divided into four sections, and each woman, both mothers and daughters, (with the exception of one mother, Suyuan Woo, who dies before the novel opens) share stories about their lives in the form of
vignettes.
As the novel opens Jing-Mei "June" Woo has just lost her mother, Suyuan, to an
aneurism. She is asked by her mother's three friends to take Suyuan's place in their Mah-Jong foursome and their 'Joy Luck Club.' The novel unfolds with interspersed
chapters by each of the three remaining members of the Club and their American-born daughters. Lindo and Waverly Jong began their war over Waverly's childhood chess stardom and the effects it has on every aspect of Waverly's adult life. An-Mei Hsu recounts the tragedy that gave her strength, and worries that her daughter, Rose, lacks the same determination. Lena St. Clair tries to care for her
eccentric mother, while her mother recounts a secret history that has allowed her to see more deeply than her daughter imagines. Through it all, June Woo tries to piece together the stories that her own mother can no longer tell, and to be faithful to her mother's memory despite their sometimes rocky relationship.
In
1993, the novel was made into a feature
film directed by
Wayne Wang and starring
Ming-Na,
Lauren Tom,
Tamlyn Tomita,
France Nuyen,
Rosalind Chao,
Mei Juan Xi,
Kieu Chinh,
Tsai Chin,
Lisa Lu, and
Vivian Wu. The screenplay was written by
Amy Tan and
Ronald Bass. When the film premiered, there were several protests across the United States by members of the
Chinese American communities, due to alleged negative portrayals of traditional Chinese society and Asian males. This allegation stems from the fact that in the novel, many of the women involved have suffered due to males in the story.
Besides being the title of the novel, The Joy Luck Club is also a club involving (directly or indirectly) all of the characters in the story. The Joy Luck Club was first envisioned by Suyuan Woo during her stay at
Kweilin. It was a group of four women, who played
mahjong to ease their nerves before the Japanese arrived at Kweilin. Along with mahjong, the four women also ate lavishly. After the Japanese attack, Suyuan fled to
America, where she started the second Joy Luck Club with friends An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-Ying St. Clair. This Joy Luck Club was different in many ways; the greatest difference of all was that after the same people always won at mahjong, the women bet less money and instead invested in stocks. Also, the women's four husbands are present at the meetings and there is much competition as to who can cook the best food.
The Mothers
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Suyuan Woo: During the
Second Sino-Japanese War, Suyuan lived in the Chinese town of
Kweilin (Guilin) while her husband at the time served as an officer in
Chungking (Chongqing). On the day of the Japanese invasion, Suyuan was forced to leave her house only with a bag of clothes, a bag of food and her
twin daughters. : In the long trek, she was forced to abandon both bags, and eventually abandoned her daughters as well. Her abandonment of the twin daughters will haunt her conscience until she dies, and though she spends many years to find them back later, it is her daughter Jing-mei who will fulfill her long-cherished wish of reuniting with the twins from her late first husband.
*
An-mei Hsu: She was the child of a woman who began her life as a first wife, but was reduced to being the fourth wife of a wealthy man when her first husband died. After the death of An-Mei's father, An-mei moved to the house of Wu-Tsing, her mother's new husband and her stepfather. : Wu-Tsing impregnated An-Mei's mother via rape, but her child was given Wu Tsing's second wife, the empress of the household and there was nothing An-Mei's mother could say about it. : An-Mei was too young to realize all of this at the time, but her mother became Wu-Tsing's through Wu-Tsing's second wife, who set An-Mei's mother to be raped in such a way that An-Mei's mother would be powerless. It was for second wife to have a child, preferably a son. When she arrived at the house, the second wife gave her a pearl necklace, but it was only made of glass.: In the end, An-mei's mother committed suicide by consuming poison, and in turn, strengthened both her daughter and her daughter's position in the household (she consumed the poison three days before the new year, causing Wu-Tsing (who was scared of the supernatural) to promise to treat her children well (An Mei and Wu-Tsing's only son) like as if they were his own from a first wife. An-mei later goes to America, gets married and has seven children.
*
Lindo Jong: Lindo is a woman whose strong will is attributed by her daughter Waverly to having been born in the year of the
Horse. When she was only twelve, she was wedded to a neighbor's young son Huang Tyan Yu. She began to love her husband as a brother, but her cold mother-in-law was greedy for a grandson, and began to restrict Lindo. : However, through careful observation of her surroundings, Lindo was cleverly able to escape her marriage unharmed and immigrate to America, where she married Tin Jong and had two sons and a strong-willed daughter like herself, Waverly.
*
Ying-Ying St. Clair: A spoiled child of a wealthy family, Ying-Ying was seduced by a playboy named Lin Xiao and married him. However, during her marriage, she was constantly humiliated when her husband openly flirted with women and even brought them home, which in the movie, happened after all their honored guests watched and listened to the opera singer that her husband invited sing to them. Utterly powerless and in great despair, she aborted their unborn son to punish her sadistic husband Lin Xiao, and later married a Caucasian man, Clifford St. Clair, with whom she immigrated to America and had a daughter, Lena. In the film however, she drowned their son as a punishment to Lin Xiao after seeing how much of a playboy Lin Xiao is, and after seeing that Lin Xiao's mistress held their son.
The Daughters
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Jing-mei "June" Woo: Jing-mei has never fully understood her mother and seems directionless in life. At the beginning of the novel, June is chosen to replace her mother's seat in the Joy Luck Club after her mother's death. At the end of the novel, June is still trying to deal with her mother's death, and she visits China to see two half-sisters whom her mother had been forced to abandon when the Japanese attacked China. : June narrates the largest amount of stories in the book out of all the characters and is often caught between traditional China and modern America. As seen in the first story, June often finds herself not knowing what to do in the face of more traditional, older Chinese (Aunties St. Clair, Jong, Hsu, and their husbands). It is also worth noting that while most of the characters are good friends with each other, June and Waverly do not get along.Waverly often humiliated her and once publicly criticised her for bad work in front of her parents. June's poor self esteem led her to feel inferior to Waverly, but she managed to regain her confidence once she relearned how to play the piano. Critics believe that if she is free of the "compare" culture, she would not make mistake playing piano in a church concert during her childhood and perhaps, June is able to reach a higher potential.
*
Rose Hsu Jordan: Rose has always been held responsible for her younger siblings (Matthew, Mark, Luke and Bing) until a family trip where her youngest brother Bing drowns and his body is never found. Rose always try her best to please her husband and even "try harder" by giving birth to a daughter. She seems weak willed, especially when her husband, Ted, files for divorce and is determined to sell the house she wishes to continue living in. Even worse, he was having an affair with another woman. However, Rose starts to gather her strength and when Ted comes for the divorce papers she tells him that he can't just throw her out of his life.
*
Waverly Jong: Waverly is independent-minded and intelligent, but is annoyed by her mother's constant criticism. Well into her adult life, she finds herself restrained by her subconscious fear of letting her mother down. She and June used to fight a lot about who was better. June played piano while Waverly played chess. Waverly was a chess prodigy, but quit playing in order to get back at her mother after an argument between them. Waverly is very insecure and often insulted June so she would feel superior. She tried to go back to playing later, but found that she had lost her talent for playing chess. She is living with a Caucasian man named Rich. Although her mother doesn't approve of Rich, Waverly still loves and accepts him (they are planning on getting married). Waverly has a daughter, Shoshana, from a previous marriage.
*
Lena St. Clair: Lena is married to a Chinese man named Harold who demands financial "equality" in their marriage. Both of them are very calculative. They are co-workers, but Lena is an associate while Harold is a partner. Harold could not understand why Lena dislikes eating ice cream and viewer cannot help noticing that Harold was very insensitive to Lena's need for a loving partner and happy home. At the end of the last story narrated by Lena, her mother visits, causing Lena to contemplate whether her marriage is falling apart and whether she truly wants to stay with Harold. At the end of the story, a treasured vase on an unstable table breaks when the table falls. Lena had known the table would fall(her mother even told her so), and she wonders why she didn't stop such a simple thing from happening.
(Name of chapter followed by Narrator's name whose perspective is being used for the chapter)-
Feathers from a Thousand Li Away
*"The Joy Luck Club," Jing-mei Woo
*"Scar," An-mei Hsu
*"The Red Candle," Lindo Jong
*"The Moon Lady," Ying-ying St. Clair
The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates
*"Rules of the Game," Waverly Jong
*"The Voice from the Wall," Lena St. Clair
*"Half and Half," Rose Hsu Jordan
*"Two Kinds," Jing-mei Woo
American Translation
*"Rice Husband," Lena St. Clair
*"Four Directions," Waverly Jong
*"Without Wood," Rose Hsu Jordan
*"Best Quality," Jing-mei Woo
Queen Mother of the Western Skies
*"Magpies," An-mei Hsu
*"Waiting Between the Trees," Ying-Ying St. Clair
*"Double Face," Lindo Jong
*"A Pair of Tickets," Jing-mei Woo
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GradeSaver study guide: Joy Luck Club*
Teacher's Guide at Random House
