The mother-daughter relationship stands at the heart of The Joy Luck Club, which features four pairs of mothers and daughters who love each other fiercely and misunderstand each other constantly. The mother-daughter relationships in this story are complex, frustrating, and beautiful as these eight women strive to express their love, discover each other, and come to terms with their differences.

The love between the mothers and their daughters is clear to readers even if it is not always clear to the characters. Suyuan, for example, loves her twin girls and Jing-mei so much that it hurts her at times. Leaving her babies by the side of the road was the most difficult thing she ever had to do, but it was the only chance they had to survive. Suyuan never stops looking for those girls. She never gives up hope. She never stops loving them. And she loves Jing-mei just as much, even though Jing-mei cannot always see it. Suyuan’s desire for her daughter to be a prodigy is an expression of love. She wants something wonderful for the girl. The gift of the jade pendant is another example of deep love. Jing-mei dislikes the pressure her mother puts on her, and she lashes out at times, but her love remains. She realizes it fully after her mother is dead and as she sees her mother’s reflection in her sisters.

An-mei grows up without her own mother for several years, and then she suffers alongside her mother when she finds out the truth about what it means to be Wu Tsing’s Fourth Wife. She watches her mother die by suicide. An-mei expresses her love for her daughter, Rose, through warnings and advice. She tells Rose that Ted is doing “monkey business” with someone else, and she turns out to be right. She pushes Rose to speak up for herself. Rose, for her part, looks back to a time when she believed everything her mother said, and now, when An-mei turns out to be correct about the “monkey business,” Rose finally follows her advice and stands up to Ted, realizing that An-mei is correct in saying that she is “without wood.”

Ying-ying’s depression has harmed her relationship with her daughter, Lena, for Lena has long felt invisible to her mother. She has longed to pull Ying-ying back to life and back to her. Yet Lena does not understand the depths of her mother’s pain or where it comes from, at least not until her mother relates the story of her first marriage and its results. In her love and concern for her daughter, Ying-ying recaptures some of her “tiger lady” so that Lena can find her inner tiger as well.

Lindo says right out that she is proud of her daughter, but it hurts that Waverly is not proud of her in return. Waverly tends to treat her mother as though she were a child or a backward old lady, yet Lindo is a wise woman with much more experience than her daughter. She knows Waverly’s intentions about Rich, and she is saddened by her daughter’s many broken promises. Lindo also fears that her granddaughter will one day forget her. Lindo has tried to give her daughter the right blend of Chinese and American, but she knows she has failed. Yet she still loves her daughter deeply, and as she and Waverly look into the mirror and discuss their noses, Waverly’s love becomes apparent as well. She truly desires her mother’s approval, and she realizes that sometimes her mother’s perspective is actually correct.