The Joy Luck Club (novel)

The Joy Luck Club
Author	Amy Tan
Language	English
Genre	Novel
Publisher	G. P. Putnam's Sons
Publication date	1989
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardback and Paperback)
Pages	288 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0-399-13420-4 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character

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 sixteen 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. While The Joy Luck Club was usually described as a novel by critics, to Tan it is a collection of short stories.^{[citation needed]}

In 1993, the novel was adapted 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.

International names

Chinese: (Traditional) 喜福會 (Simplified) 喜福会 pinyin: Xi Fu Hui

Plot summary

As the novel opens Jing-Mei "June" Woo has just lost her mother, Suyuan, to an aneurysm. 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.

Characters

An-Mei Hsu

Lindo Jong

Lindo is a strong-willed woman, a trait her daughter Waverly attributes to her having been born in the year of the Horse. When Lindo was only twelve, she was forced to move in with a neighbor's young son, Huang Tyan Yu. She married him when she was sixteen. She soon realized that her husband was just a little boy at heart and had no sexual interest in her. Lindo began to care for her husband as a brother, but her cruel mother-in-law expected Lindo to produce a grandson soon. She restricted Lindo's activities, eventually ordering her to remain on bed rest until she could conceive and deliver a child.

Determined to escape this situation, Lindo carefully observes the other people in the household and eventually forms a clever plan to escape her marriage without dishonor. She manages to convince her young husband's family that he was actually fated to marry another woman, and that her marriage to Huang Tyan Yu will only bring bad luck to the family.

Freed of her first marriage, Lindo decides to immigrate to America. She marries a Chinese-American man named Tin Jong and has three children: sons Winston and Vincent, and daughter Waverly.

Lindo experiences regret over losing some of her Chinese identity by living so long in America (she is treated like a tourist on a visit to China), and expresses concern that Waverly's American upbringing has caused a barrier between them.

Su-Yuan Woo

Ying-Ying St. Clair

Ying-Ying was born in the year of the Tiger, a ferocious animal, but was told by her wealthy family that girls should be meek and gentle. She develops a passive, fatalistic personality and learns to repress her own feelings. Ying-Ying marries a vulgar playboy named Lin Xiao, not out of love, but because she believes this is her fate. After their marriage, her husband becomes abusive and openly carries on affairs with other women. Ying-Ying discovers she is pregnant at about the same time her husband abandons her for an opera singer. She takes revenge by aborting her unborn son and goes to live with poor relatives in the country. After 10 years, she decides to move to the city.

While working in the city, Ying-Ying meets an American man named Clifford St. Clair. He falls in love with her, but Ying-Ying finds herself incapable of strong emotion and cannot return his love. He courts her for a full 4 years before she agrees to marry him after learning that Lin Xiao has died, which she took as the proper sign to move on. She allows him to control most aspects of her life, mistranslating her words and actions, and even changing her name to "Betty." Ying-Ying and Clifford have a daughter, Lena.

Ying-Ying is horrified when she realizes that Lena has inherited her behaviors and trapped herself in a loveless marriage with a controlling husband. She finally tells her daughter her own history to convince her that she must take control of her own life. Lena soon files for divorce.

Daughters

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 number of stories, narrating both her own tales and speaking as best she can for her mother. June is 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, like her mother's friends from the Joy Luck Club. Although most of the women in the book are friends with one another, June and Waverly have never gotten along. They were childhood rivals, and even as adults Waverly insults and criticizes June in front of their parents. June suffers from feelings of inferiority, but begins to regain her confidence once she returns to playing the piano, a hobby she abandoned as a child.

Rose Hsu Jordan

Rose had always been held responsible for her younger siblings (Matthew, Mark, Luke and Bing), until a family trip where her youngest brother Bing drowned. Rose's mother proves how much she cares about her son by throwing her most prized possession into the ocean. Rose always try her best to please her husband, Ted, and be a perfect mother for their young daughter. Rose is shocked when she learns that Ted has been having an affair with another woman and that he wants a divorce to move in with her. He even wants to sell their house in the suburbs of San Francisco, although Rose hoped to continue living there with her daughter. Yet after her mother tells her the story of Rose's maternal grandmother, who never knew worth until death, the formerly weak-willed Rose becomes determined to assert herself. When Ted comes for the divorce papers, she tells him that he can't just throw her out of his life, comparing herself to weeds in his garden, once so beloved, now unkempt and filthy. She wants to hire a good lawyer and fight for possession of the house, which she eventually wins.

Waverly Jong

Waverly is an independent-minded and intelligent woman, 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 were childhood rivals, and their mothers often compared their accomplishments. Waverly was a chess prodigy and gained some fame for her skill at the game, but quit playing in order to get back at her mother after an argument. When Waverly later tried to take up chess again, she found that she had lost her talent. After a failed marriage with a man named Marvin, which she believed her mother poisoned, Waverly lives with her Caucasian boyfriend, Rich and her daughter Shoshana, whom she had with Marvin. Although she thinks her mother doesn't approve of Rich, Waverly still plans on marrying him but later discovers that her mother did not disapprove of Rich and that she had been misreading her mother all along.

Lena St. Clair

Lena was born to an Irish-American father and a Chinese mother. Her mother has the ability to predict things that occur in their family before they happen. Lena's husband, Harold, is a Caucasian man who demands financial "equality" in their marriage. They are co-workers, but Lena is an associate while Harold is a partner so he has a larger salary than she does. However, he insists that all household expenses be divided equally between them. A visit from Lena's mother leads her to contemplate whether she truly wants to stay with Harold. When an unstable end table (built by Harold) falls over, breaking the vase that was standing on it, Lena begins to realize how passive she has become. She had foreseen that the table would fall (her mother had even warned her about it), but had done nothing to prevent the vase from breaking.

External links

Teacher's Guide at Random House

The Joy Luck Club (novel)

International names

Plot summary

Characters

Daughters

Table of contents

Feathers from a Thousand Li Away

The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates

American Translation

Queen Mother of the Western Skies

External links