Chinese Culture vs. American Culture in Amy Tans The Joy...

Chinese Culture vs. American Culture in Amy Tans The Joy Luck Club An authors cultural background can play a large part in the authors writing. Amy Tan, a Chinese-American woman, uses the cultural values of Chinese women in American culture in her novel, The Joy Luck Club. These cultural values shape the outcome of The Joy Luck Club. The two cultural value systems create conflict between the characters. In The Joy Luck Club, the chapter Waiting Between the Trees illustrates major concerns facing Chinese-American women. Chinese culture is a male dominated culture that leaves women little freedom. Their only job is to make their male spouses content. Living with their traditional culture in American society, Chinese-American†¦show more content†¦She was very pretty when she was a young girl. She was educated like every Chinese woman used to be: To be obedient, to honor ones parents, ones husband and to try to please him and his family. Ying-Ying was not taught to use her own digression and make her own way through life. The result of this education was a disaster due to the differences in values between the two cultures. Ying-Ying realized that her marriage was a mistake when her husband left her for another woman. Her love for him turned to hate and she killed her unborn baby. She felt great remorse for this and considered herself a murderer. She later remarried a gentleman by the name of St. Clair. With St. Clair she had a daughter. After her second son, which was her third child, died at birth, Ying-Ying had a mental breakdown. She saw his death as a punishment for the murdering her first son. Ying-Ying became passive and lifeless after her second son died. She kept the fact that she felt responsible for her second sons death a secret from her husband and daughter, Lena. As shown in this example, Ying-Ying had Chinese cultural values in an American society. This produces the conflict between cultures. Ying-Ying becomes so passive that she lets her husband make all of her decisions for her. Lena St.Clair, on the other hand, was born in America and lives like an American girl. But when she was born, she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and had been swimming away ever since,Show MoreRelatedThe Joy Luck Club Socratic Seminar Questions1104 Words   |  5 PagesAP Literature and Composition 23 July 2015 The Joy Luck Club Socratic Seminar Questions The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, exposes the paradoxical relationships between Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters. Although both sides experience their own strife in life, the mothers are probably most notable for their struggle in assimilating to society. Given that they are the first generations to have contact with the unfamiliar culture, they must set foot onto the foreign land andRead MoreAmy Tan s The Joy Luck Club890 Words   |  4 PagesLena and Ying-Ying from Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club both face injustice in their patriarchal relationships, just as Mariam and Laila from A Thousand Splendid Suns, however on very different terms. Lena, like Amir and Laila, struggles with confrontation and complete deference of others. However, under the influence of her mother, Lena realizes the problematic recurrences in relationship with her husband. Ying-Ying, aware of her daughters submissiveness, must lead Lena to intervention to confront herselfRead More Analysis Of Two Kinds By Amy Tan1190 Words   |  5 PagesA Mother and Her Daughter In Amy Tan’s â€Å"Two Kinds† (1989), a section of her novel â€Å"The Joy Luck Club†, Tan depicts the mother-daughter relationship between June and her mother, Ms. Woo. Ms. Woo is determined to turn June into a child prodigy, forcing her to try different activities to see if she would be a prodigy in that field. Ms. Woo then forces June to take piano lessons, and to her content June continues to play the piano with lessons from Mr. Chong. When it comes time for June to perform in