Amy Tan’s
novel The Joy Luck
Club is a series of interwoven vignettes detailing the lives of four Chinese women who come together once a week to play mah-jongg, swap stories, recount memories, and support one another. There are four major parts to the novel, each introduced by a
parable that displays the section’s theme. The first of the four, Feathers From A Thousand Li Away, is the most significant of the group, providing in it the first glimpse of the book’s overall message. It is about the difference between appearance and reality, the pain of sacrifice, the desire to change into something better, the hopes we have for ourselves and others, and the communication gap that divides us all. As each of the stories in this first section is unraveled, these themes are also developed, shaping the novel into a profound and universal whole.
In the first segment, entitled the Joy Luck Club, the formation of the club is explained and the four main characters are introduced. They are Jing-
Mei Woo, An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-Ying St. Clair. Jing-Mei’s
mother and founder of the club, Suyuan, has recently passed away leaving her
daughter to assume her position on the east of the mah-jongg table. The first
story belongs to this mother-daughter pair. Suyuan and the other three aunties all hail from China, and although they suffered many tragedies there, they are still proud of their Oriental heritage and Chinese culture. As to be expected, there is a break in communication between Suyuan and the American-born Jing-Mei that begins as a small aperture but expands into a wide chasm of taciturnity. Consequently, there is a great pain between them intensified by their inability to empathize with one another. Suyuan, iron-willed and unwavering, cannot understand Jing-Mei’s light-mindedness when it comes to Chinese tradition. Why does her daughter not value her Oriental background as much as she does? That is one of the reasons why Suyuan set up the Joy Luck Club in the first place-to preserve her culture. Jing-Mei, on the other hand, is embarrassed by Suyuan’s passionate traditionalism and ignorance of American customs. When Jing-Mei learns of her mother’s sacrifice, she is completely surprised. The lack of understanding between them made it almost impossible for Jing-Mei to anticipate the suffering her mother endured in China, a truth reflected by the opening parable. Like Suyuan, the mother in the parable comes to America hoping to escape the pain of her past and create a better world for her daughter to live in. And like Jing-mei, the daughter in the parable grows up speaking only English, unaware of the sorrows borne for her sake. The language barrier that separates the two women is a theme well expressed by the introductory parable, and greatly elaborated upon throughout the rest of the novel. The next story concerns the affliction of An-Mei Hsu, her mother, and her grandmother, and is called Scar. Like the previous story and opening parable, this story stresses the distance between mother and daughter, and does so in two forms. The first is the physical separation of An-Mei and her mother when An-Mei is still a young child. After her father dies, An-mei’s mother leaves home and becomes a concubine for another man, causing the rest of the family to disown her. As a result, An-Mei never really knew who she was and does not feel apart of her. Popo, her grandmother, tells An-Mei that she comes from “the bowels of a stupid goose”(33), causing An-Mei to feel an even stronger disconnection with her mother and a deep worthlessness within herself. Since she has no real memory of her other than this, she believes that Popo’s story is true, a representation of the parable’s theme of appearance versus reality. The second form of separation is between Popo and her daughter. Popo calls her an insignificant goose because of the betrayal she made against her family by becoming a concubine. Thhis is, in Chinese culture, an act of wickedness and immorality that cannot be redeemed. The symbolism of An-Mei’s mother as a goose relates to the parable in a major way. An-Mei’s mother tried to become something other than what she was, just like the goose. Although An-Mei thinks she is worthless, it is her confused mother who does not know her true worth by trying and failing to be so many things but herself. When Popo falls ill, An-Mei’s mother tries to make amends with her by attempting to save her from death. She cuts off a piece of her own flesh to put into a healing soup for her mother, leaving a lasting physical scar. Through this sacrifice, Popo is able to come to terms with her daughter, and An-mei is able to know and love her mother by understanding and sharing her suffering with her. The various links between the parable and this story provide an insight into the novel’s themes as well as the fundamentals of love, pain, and sacrifice.
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