Dec 29, 2009

The Joy Luck Club | Characters

The main characters in this novel are four women: China-born Suyuan Woo, An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair; and their four daughters, American-born Jing-mei "June" Woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, Waverly Jong, and Lena St. Clair. Some readers have expressed difficulty in sensing a distinctness among the four mothers and the four daughters. The voices seem, at least on a first reading, too similar.

But if there is similarity in their voices and a sameness to the daughters' complaints about growing up Chinese-American, there is a brilliance of detail and individuality in the...