The Joy Luck Club

Three lessons in The Joy Luck Club are you should not judge people because you can never understand their experiences, winning isn’t everything, and the American Dream is a myth. One of the reasons...

While the Joy Luck mothers’s goal is to teach their daughters about life, they also end up learning something important: their daughters are just like them. The mothers want the best for their...

In Amy Tan's novel, The Joy Luck Club, "Rules of the Game" tells the story of Waverly Jong as she becomes a chess champion. However, more important is the theme that Waverly learns from her...

In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan explores the relationships between Chinese immigrant mothers and their daughters who have grown up in America. Waverly Jong has a relationship of continual conflict...

When Waverly's mother specifies that her soup at the restaurant must be served very hot, Waverly says that "it was by her tongue's expert estimate 'not even lukewarm.'" Of course, one's tongue is...

The parable of "Feathers from a Thousand Li Away" is about hope. It also contains lessons about the difficulties of cultural and communication gaps. The parable is used to illustrate the...

As a mother and a new American, Suyuan was concerned for her American born daughter, Jing-mei (known as June) and for their future in the United States. She agonized over the decision to leave her...

"A Pair of Tickets" is the final story in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, and, as such, it contains a lot of important thematic quotes. In this chapter, Jing-Mei Woo goes to China to meet her...

The name of The Joy Luck Club is significant in that it shows how the various women depicted in the story are still able to have a positive outlook on life despite their many trials and...

In "The Rules of the Game," a selection from Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, Waverly learns to play chess and also learns strategy from her mother just by observing the way her mother communicates and...

Language is vitally important to understanding the mother/ daughter relationships in Tan's work. Tan has the daughters understanding bits and pieces of Chinese and the mothers understanding bits...

In the final chapter of The Joy Luck Club, the main character, Jing-mei, chooses to embrace and take on her mother's Chinese identity. Jing-mei is attempting to write her mother's story. She is...

In "The Joy Luck Club," Mrs. Woo attempts to bring a Swan into the United States after purchasing it in China. The seller had told her that the swan was a duck that had stretched its neck so far it...

The narrator physically going to China in "A Pair of Tickets" represents her internal change as she begins to accept her Chinese heritage and that side of herself in contrast to her American...

There are several themes in Amy Tan's chapter entitled "The Moon Lady," from The Joy Luck Club. The overall theme seems to relate to finding one's place in the world. The speaker in this chapter is...

Waverly's mother teaches her the art of invisible strength by not making things easy for her. Waverly says that her mother taught her the art of invisible strength when she was young, “a strategy...

In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, "A Pair of Tickets" is probably my favorite story, for it is in this segment that the narrator, Jing-Mei (June) Woo finally comes to understand her mother (Suyuan...

The terms "hulihudu" and "heimongmong" are Chinese words indicating confusion. Rose says that the closest translation for "hulihudu" would be "confused", and "heimongmong" might be best described...

I can tell you about two of her techniques: structure and narrative.Tan uses the "talk story" form of narrative. This is a Chinese "folk art form by which characters pass on values...

Magpies (black birds belonging to the crow family) represent duplicity in The Joy Luck Club. The author strategically places stories and mentions of magpies near real-life occurrences of deception...

Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, tells the stories of the women in the "Joy Luck Club." Jing-Mei's mother used to tell her the same story over and over, but the story changed so much, that Jing-Mei...

As another reviewer said, it can be tricky to identify an author's "purpose" or why the author wrote a particular work. It is usually better to discuss the themes or what ideas arise from the work....

[eNotes editors are only permitted to answer one question per posting. Additional questions should be posted separately.] In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, in the chapter called "Two Kinds," the...

In Amy Tan's novel The Joy Luck Club, the institution of marriage plays a significant role in a woman's identity, whether the woman is from China or of Chinese origin born in America. Though...

At the very end of Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club, one of the characters, Jing-Mei Woo, is finally able to meet her two long-lost twin sisters, who had had to be abandoned by their mother in...

In "The Red Candle," the third chapter of The Joy Luck Club, Lindo wants desperately to get out of her marriage, however, doing so would cause her to shame her parents and disrespect her culture....

The Joy Luck Club was originally formed to serve one purpose, but this changed later, and the club served multiple purposes. Suyuan, Jing-mei’s mother, started the club back in China at a time when...

This question refers to the chapter "Best Quality," in which Jing-Mei, or June, remembers the last New Year's dinner her mother cooked when she prepared crab for her friends. Jing-Mei thinks she is...

Suyuan Woo left money, jewelry, and photos with her twin babies on the side of the road in China. The jewelry included a jade ring and a heavy gold bracelet. Meanwhile, the photos included pictures...

Both Lena St. Clair and Rose Hsu Jordan are in failing marriages by the third section of the novel (when the Chinese American daughters are now adult women), both women also appear in each other's...

The narrative titled “Half and Half,” which is one chapter of Amy Tan’s book titled The Joy Luck Club, is narrated by Rose Hsu Jordan and discusses her relationship with her mother, An-mei Hsu....

Waverly feels like her mother is living through her achievements. Although she makes a point to explain that a Chinese woman is careful about showing pride, Waverly feels that her mother takes too...

In Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club, the chapter titled “Half and Half” is narrated by Rose Hsu Jordan. Some of the themes, tones, and narrative styles of the chapter might be described as...

Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club contains repeated reflections upon the generational gap between the Chinese parents and their American-born children. All the mothers are disappointed in their Americanized...

The most prominent symbol in "Feathers from a Thousand Li Away" is the feather itself. The vignette that comes just before the section tells of a woman who had a swan feather that she packed away...

I think a song that I might choose that reflects the relationship between Lindo and her daughter Waverly is the duet between Miley Cyrus and her father Billy Ray Cyrus, called "I Learned From You."...

In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, it is not clear as to whether the two actually are reconciled, but in Ying-ying's last chapter, she is planning to fix things for her daughter—difficulties in her...

In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, Jing-Mei (June) has done all she can to reject everything Chinese. She sees herself only as she is able: as an American, and this causes a great deal of strife...

In "A Pair of Tickets" from Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, images used in the story indicate change, a central theme in this story. Upon arriving in China, Jing-Mei reports that she feels like she is...

The setting is appropriate because it shows the beginning of Jing-Mei "becoming Chinese" through an offer to engage with people and stories from her mother's past. The opening scene shows when...

Many of the most profound written works on the subject of cultural and generational clashes are true accounts; these often come in the form of autobiography or memoir, some of which are listed...

The power of storytelling in a central theme in Amy Tan's novel The Joy Luck Club. Storytelling in The Joy Luck Club serves as an intergenerational and intercultural link between the mothers and...

Situational irony is a type of irony that depends on plot events and circumstances. In a literary work, situational irony occurs when something happens that is the opposite of what is intended or...

In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, the reader learns that names are very important. They are not haphazardly chosen for a Chinese child, but are believed to reflect the true essence or nature of the...

In the “Two Kinds” chapter of her novel The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan uses a good deal of descriptive language, particularly when discussing physical appearances. This method of writing seems...

The quote you have highlighted comes from one of the sections of this brilliant novel narrated by Waverly, and charts her growing understanding and development of the world and the way that she...

The key differences between the novel The Joy Luck Club and the 1993 film version directed by Wayne Wang have to do with the narrative sequencing of the story. The Joy Luck Club is a dense novel...

Kweilin was reputed to be a very beautiful city, with "jagged peaks lining a curving river, with magic moss greening the banks". In China, "everybody dreamed about Kweilin", but as is often true...

A simile is a literary device that compares two concepts using 'like' or 'as.' In this case, the simile is describing her interaction to the TV as a dance, which suggests a relationship. It also...

Author Amy Tan wrote this semi-autobiographical novel in the voice of eight different women. Though it has sometimes been criticized for being confusing and hard to follow because of the various...