Cultural Significance “The Joy Luck Club and My Life” Culture significance is one of the key elements in The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. What I mean by cultural significance is that the book shows the historic, social and spiritual value for past and present generations of mothers and daughters. The novel is about four Chinese mothers who have migrated from China to the United States, all the mothers migrated for different reasons, some were looking for a better life for their daughters and others wanted to run from the wars occurring near their homes. The mothers who grew up in China talk a lot about the Chinese culture and tell about the lives of their daughters and how migrating to the United States their daughters will have a better life.
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Even though both the American and the Chinese cultures are presented in the Joy Luck Club, the amount of Chinese cultural is greater than of the American culture, because Tan wants her readers to gain a deep understanding of the Chinese culture. Some of the most important cultural elements in the Joy Luck Club are obedience, the belief in fate, and the idea of marriage, because these cultural elements are explored a lot by Amy Tan, in order to inform the reader about the Chinese culture and understand how the characters act in the ways they do in the story. First off obedience is the compliance with an order or request to another's authority. The mothers who use their Chinese culture have more obedience than the daughters in the book because that’s how growing up in China was, which is the difference between Chinese and American culture. They had to be obedient otherwise there was a price to pay. In the book Suyuan Woo and her daughter Jing-mei (June) Woo …show more content…
First of all, there are many differences between males and females. The mothers have experienced this split more because they were raised in China. But their daughters do not know about this because in America everyone is equal. In China, there are different reasons for why men marry and why women marry. Men marry to show their wealth and power because they can have more than one wife.The more wives they have, the wealthier they look. Therefore there is no love in any of the marriages in China. “Wu Tsing had asked her to be his concubine, not for love, but because of the prestige of owning what so many other men wanted.” (234). Women marry because it is their job to give both to sons that will carry on a family’s existence. Women marry to serve their husbands. Therefore, marriage in China is not for love; it is for position. Women can be First Wives or the concubines of a man. From this, their values are measured. Women cannot remarry and “…suicide is the only way a woman can escape a marriage” (234). For example in China,the destiny of marriage is based on a candle. Lindo Jong, one of the mothers, explains the idea behind candle: “The candle (is) a marriage bond that (is) worth more than a Catholic promise no to divorce. It (means a woman cannot) divorce and even remarry, even if the (husband) died.”59.Anyone who goes against the Chinese morals is shameful for doing so. The idea of marriage
Even though both the American and the Chinese cultures are presented in the Joy Luck Club, the amount of Chinese cultural is greater than of the American culture, because Tan wants her readers to gain a deep understanding of the Chinese culture. Some of the most important cultural elements in the Joy Luck Club are obedience, the belief in fate, and the idea of marriage, because these cultural elements are explored a lot by Amy Tan, in order to inform the reader about the Chinese culture and understand how the characters act in the ways they do in the story. First off obedience is the compliance with an order or request to another's authority. The mothers who use their Chinese culture have more obedience than the daughters in the book because that’s how growing up in China was, which is the difference between Chinese and American culture. They had to be obedient otherwise there was a price to pay. In the book Suyuan Woo and her daughter Jing-mei (June) Woo …show more content…
First of all, there are many differences between males and females. The mothers have experienced this split more because they were raised in China. But their daughters do not know about this because in America everyone is equal. In China, there are different reasons for why men marry and why women marry. Men marry to show their wealth and power because they can have more than one wife.The more wives they have, the wealthier they look. Therefore there is no love in any of the marriages in China. “Wu Tsing had asked her to be his concubine, not for love, but because of the prestige of owning what so many other men wanted.” (234). Women marry because it is their job to give both to sons that will carry on a family’s existence. Women marry to serve their husbands. Therefore, marriage in China is not for love; it is for position. Women can be First Wives or the concubines of a man. From this, their values are measured. Women cannot remarry and “…suicide is the only way a woman can escape a marriage” (234). For example in China,the destiny of marriage is based on a candle. Lindo Jong, one of the mothers, explains the idea behind candle: “The candle (is) a marriage bond that (is) worth more than a Catholic promise no to divorce. It (means a woman cannot) divorce and even remarry, even if the (husband) died.”59.Anyone who goes against the Chinese morals is shameful for doing so. The idea of marriage