From Conflicts to Reconciliations: Contradictory Mother-Daughter Relationships in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club written by Amy Tan includes sixteen interwoven stories about conflicts between Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters. When the mothers bring their Chinese patriarchal discourses and values to America and impose on their American-born daughters, the severe conflicts occur. From the conflicts to reconciliations, we can see how the mothers relieve from their painful memories, change their values, and reconcile with their daughters; how the daughters free from the conflicts and experience the process of their maturity through explorations of relationships with their mothers, which suggests that every woman who is also a daughter can attain her genuine maturity through sincerely exploring her relationship with her mother.

In this novel, the author focuses on mother and daughter relationship so I am going to offer some statements on the mother and daughter bonding. Adrienne Rich analyzed that motherhood is an institution in patriarchy－a female experience that is shaped by male expectations and structures, and virtually unrecorded by women themselves to date. Daughter and mother are separated and forever trapped by the institution, the function of motherhood (Heung, 1993).That is why the mother-daughter relationships in The Joy Luck Club are so complex and contradictory that the daughters struggle to free from it and to be independent individuals but they fail.

Take Waverly Jong for example, in the chapter, “Rules of the Game,” Waverly had a talent for playing chess. She soon found that the game hinged on invisible strength in the form of secret traps and keen foresight. She became champions in many games and began to attract attention because of her young age. Her mother Lindo Jong started to make use of Waverly to feed her own self-pride. Gradually, Waverly was fed up with his mother showing off. One day, Waverly yelled at her mother in the street, telling her that she was embarrassed by her constant bragging. Waverly ran off, ignoring her mother’s shouts; when she returned later that night, Lindo said that because Waverly had no concern for her family, the family would have no concern for her. From then on, they oppressed their feelings and built an invisible wall between them. Waverly was afraid to tell her mother she was getting married with Rich because she supposed that her mother would criticize him to hurt her. She knew her feeling could be damaged by her mother’s comments.

The reason why she assumes that her mother will criticize rather than compliment on her fiancé is that she cares her mother very much. Even though she does not want to hear her mother’s opinions any more, she cannot escape and still cares about what her mother says and thinks. We can see the maternal love when Lindo says: “Hate? Why do you think I hate your future husband?” The maternal love will never disappear no matter what happened between mother and daughter and will make the tie between mother and daughter never loose. Most important of all, they face their conflicts, rather than keep silent. Many of us are afraid to face conflicts, which may create more resistances or soothe the pains. Hence, we choose to repress our feelings, escape from our real thoughts, and cover up the conflicts. Without communication, the conflicts were only accumulated instead of disappearing. Finally, the door in the invisible wall between Lindo and Waverly is opened. They learn to communicate and move through it, rather than staying stuck in it as we have so often done.

The first step to solving the conflicts is to know why the conflicts occur; hence, I also want to analyze the cultural differences and generation gaps in this novel and how it affects the mother and daughter bodings and conflicts. The conflicts between the immigrant mothers and their American-born daughters are not simply a generation gap. The novel suggests the tensions in the United States rise from the inability of the mothers and daughters to share same cultural concepts and identity (Wood, 2012). To Lindo and to Chinese women of her generation, it was accepted without question that children would sacrifice everything for their parents' wishes so she accept the arranged marriage. To the Chinese-American children of today's generation, however, promises and sacrifices have little meaning: Lindo's daughter cannot even honor a simple promise to come to dinner. The girl can offer only feeble excuses. When she was a girl, Lindo had no choice. She had to obey.

In America, children have more chances to express their feelings and opinions; in contrast, the Chinese children are used to oppression and obedience. For instance, Suyuan Woo yelled to her daughter, Jing-mei Woo, "Only two kind of daughters. Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter!" (142) Jing-mei screamed back that she wished she was dead, like her mother's other daughters.

        The mothers hope that their daughters have good future. The childhood of Jing-mei Woo is full of pain and resentment because her mother desires her to be a prodigy. Suyuan is sure that Jing-mei has her hidden inner talent and will become a prodigy if only she practices hard enough. But Jing-mei always is hard to live up with her mother’s high expectations, and as she looks in the mirror one night, she promises herself that she will not allow her mother to try to force her to become what she is not. Indeed, every mother must hope their daughters with a good future, protect them from harm, and keep them from making the same mistakes she did. These hopes are all good intentions. But why those hopes make the childhood of Jing-mei become a trauma. When mothers impose their hopes on their daughters, hopes become expectations. The contradiction will occur at the time when the daughters want to live up to that expectations but it is too high to achieve.

The mothers in The Joy Luck Club are deeply influenced by traditional Chinese restrictions on women in a patriarchal society. “If we look at the way we have been acculturated, we will see that much of what we were taught has its roots in patriarchy,” said Deri Joy Ronis. We can see the evidence of patriarchy in the chapter, “The Red Candle,” Lindo was betrothed when she was only two years old — to a boy only a year old. She did not have the right to decide her own marriage. Lindo spent the next few years working hard — learning how to cook, sew, and clean — because she had promised her parents that she would be a good wife. In current perspectives, I think the definition of “a good wife” here is very patriarchal and arbitrary. Why a woman doing the house works hard means that she is a good wife. Moreover, she was blamed by Huang Taitai for having no child even though the reality is that Tyan-yu Huang did not want to touch her.

An-mei’s mother is also the victim of the patriarchal society. She who was a widow married Wu Tsing and became his concubine because she was trapped by his second wife. However, she was looked down on. When she wanted to her daughter, Popo said harshly: “Who is this ghost? Not an honored widow. Just a number three concubine. If you take your daughter, she will become like you. No face. Never able to lift up her head.”

        Although I said the mothers are oppressed by the patriarchal values, they do not just passively accept their fate. I find that in the end of two stories the mothers, to some extent, struggle to free from the miserable conditions and they succeed. I am impressed with the very different responses to repressive circumstance. In the chapter, “Magpies,” An-mei Hsu describe the relationship she had with her mother. An-mei’s mother was trapped into marriage with Wu Tsing. After becoming his concubine, she suffered from the vicious treatments from Second wife. Hence, An-mei’s mother committed suicide. Later, after her mother’s vengeful suicide, An-mei realized that her mother killed her weak spirit to make An-mei’s spirit stronger. An-mei was no longer tricked by the fake necklace given by Second wife, crushing it underfoot. She no longer absorbed her own misery, suppressed her own pain, and swallowed her own bitter tears. She said, “On that day, I learned to shout” (240).

An-mei told this story in“Magpies” when she knew the marriage of her daughter Rose Hsu Jordan was decaying. Because of the trauma memory of losing her younger brother, Bing, Rose was unable to assert her opinion, to stand up for herself, or to make decisions. She let her husband, Ted, make all of the decisions in their life. Their marriage gradually became unbalanced. She sacrificed herself to become the “victim” to Ted’s “hero.” But no one asked her to be that kind of victim. Everyone in the unbalanced relationship will feel tired. Her husband was divorcing her. Rose drew a parallel between Bing’s death and her marriage; both times, she saw the danger coming but did nothing about it. After hearing the story of her mother, An-mei, Rose asserted herself and told Ted that she wanted the house, and that her lawyer would serve him papers. Finally, she shouted, stood up for herself, and made the decision. Ted was impressed by the power of her words.

After analyzing mother-daughter relationship between An-mei Hsu and Rose Hsu Jordan, I find that both of them experience the maturity from oppression to speaking up for themselves. In the Chinese patriarchal society, the women are forced to submit to their husbands who dominate the whole family. Even though An-mei learns to express her feelings, the Chinese values are still rooted. She brings those values to American and imposes on her American-born daughter. The Asian American is regarded as the minority in America. The stereotypes and discrimination to the Asian American are underpinned by the dominant culture.

The conflict caused by oppression can either be fierce quarrels like the conflict between Lindo Jong and Waverly Jong  or be silent tears like the conflict between An-mei Hsu and Rose Hsu Jordan. “Oppression is a contributing factor in violence, which we see affecting all aspects of our society. Accepting that conflict is a part of life and viewing it as an opportunity rather than a crisis allows people to seek and find alternatives to the multigenerational historical legacy of the toleration of abuse in our society (Ronis, 2001).” Conflicts in mother and daughter relationships are hard to avoid, especially at the time when it combines the relationships with cultural differences, but people still need to find the measures to soothe with them.

       Another instance of how the mother is not submissive to their arranged fate is the story of Lindo. In the chapter, “The Red Candle,” Lindo submitted her life to her parent’s plans for her future. When she was only twelve years old, she was sent to the home of her betrothed, Tyan-yu Huang. Huang Taitai was eager to have grandson so she confined Lindo to bed and fed her some awful medicine. Gradually, Lindo started to have self-awareness. She used a dream to convince Huang Taitai that the candle, burning continuously throughout the night and symbolizing a marriage that can never be broken, blew out; Tyan-yu would die if he stayed married to Lindo; and that a pregnant servant girl was carrying Tyan-yu’s baby. Finally, everyone was happy, and Lindo got enough money to go to America.

        In The Joy Luck Club, the fates of the daughters seem to inherit from that of the mothers. In the chapter, “Without Wood,” Rose said: “She said I was without wood. Born without wood so that I listened to too many people. She knew this, because once she had almost become this way” (191). An-mei, who is proud of having stood up for herself after her mother died, thinks her daughter Rose is born without “wood” so Rose is so confused all the time and hard to make decisions. Unhealthy emotional environments have a very negative effect on the whole family, which in turn affects out world (Winter, 1994). The past relationships must always influence present personal interactions. One’s inability to translate the past may have negative implications for present and future relationships (Wood, 2012).The mothers have tremendous impact on their daughter. The reason why the fates of the daughters seem to inherit that of the mothers is that the past traumas of the mothers have not been healed yet. Moving to America, the mothers have opportunity to heal the past in the environment where it is more liberal. Even though America also has patriarchal values, women have more power and chances to correct it. Many people have grown up with the same fear of talking about the traumas and violations they experienced in the past. In this novel, only when the mother heals their traumatic memories do both mothers and daughters free from their rotted relationships and bring them in harmony.

Everyone has their stories making them become who they are and explaining why they behave the way they do. Jing-mei reported what her mother Suyuan had said of An-mei. She said Auntie An-mei had no spine. We realize that her childhood helps explain why she appears to have no spine. Her traumatic memories of her painful separation from her mother and circumstances resulting in her throat scar establish the way she is. We can see the stories behind every person, not just use the overly subjective manner in which we often sum people up.

        The daughter fighting for independence from their powerful commanding mothers is fierce, but finally the reconciliations are reached. The unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters supersedes the generation and cultural gap. The mothers in this novel express their love in a variety of ways, especially in traditional Chinese ways. Hence, the American-born daughters cannot understand and resist their mother’s ways of education. A healthy relationship should contain not only loving one another but also starting with unconditional self-love, which translates into a healthy self-esteem (Ronis, 2001). Through telling their stories, the mothers heal their traumatic memories; the daughters realize that the identity of Chinese and American coexist and it will never be erased, reconstruct their own feminine egos and awareness, and create their own values.

       

Working Cited

  Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Print.

Heung, M. “Daughter-Text/Mother-Text: Matrilineage in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club.” Feminist Studies 19.3 (1993): 597-616.

Hirsch, Marianne. Mothers and Daughters. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981. Print.

Wood, M. “Negotiating the Geography of Mother-Daughter Relationships in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club.” The Midwest Quarterly 18.2 (2012): 82-96.

Romagnolo, C. “Narrative beginnings in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club: a feminist study (1).” Studies In The Novel 18.9 (2003): 89-107.

Ronis, D. “Transforming Destructive Conflict: Healing the Oppression of Patriarchy.” Mediation Quarterly 18.3 (2001): 279-311.

Adams, B. “Identity-in-difference: Re-generating Debate about Intergenerational Relationships in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club.” Studies In The Literary Imagination 3.2 (2006):79-94.

Souris, S. “‘Only two kinds of daughters’: inter-monologue dialogicity in The Joy Luck Club.” Theory, Culture and Criticism 2 (1994): 99.

Winter, D. “Peace From an Ecofeminist Perspective: Boys Will Be Boys…Unless…” The Peace Psychology Bulletin 3.3 (1994)