Amy Tan’s Argument What is an author’s purpose of creating a work of literature? An obvious reason as to why authors write books is to spark a debate. Authors want readers to have discussions over the text they’ve read. Amy Tan is no exception and succeeded in getting her readers to dispute over her works. For instance scholars argue over whether the narrative beginnings in The Joy Luck Club took a feminist view point or if the beginnings were there to analyze cultural identity (Romagnolo). Her works like The Bonesetter’s Daughter and The Joy Luck Club assess controversial deliberations. Tan expresses her argument through her characters based on real life situations. Amy Tan evaluates controversial topics such as familial bonds, culture
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As generations evolve over years, cultural conflicts emerge between pre-existing and new generations, “because first generation Chinese American mothers do not communicate affection … their parenting styles are often perceived as being authoritative or unaffectionate” (Communicating Affection within Chinese American Mother-Daughter Relationships). The daughters in both novels felt disconnect from their mothers because they were surrounded by American parents who tended to be less authoritative. Typically Americans didn’t grow up in a war zone and this is why they were more affectionate. Whereas the Asian mothers in both novels “have experienced two kinds of extreme situations; one kind is famine, war, forced marriage…the other is culture alienation…and conflict between mother and daughter in America”(Xu). The mothers grew up in a war zone in China with Chinese customs. Since the mothers made a brave decision to leave behind their war torn homeland and customs and start fresh in America, their daughters were raised in comfort with American traditions. The mothers’ Chinese background proved “inability for mothers and daughters to share geographically informed cultured stories influences both mother-daughter relationships and individual and cultural identity” (Wood). Amy Tan is elaborating the difficulty that comes with these cultural barriers. A communication barrier was put between the mothers and daughters as a result of their generations (Shear). Whether that was an actual barrier between languages as Jing-Mei Woo from The Joy Luck Club describes, “my mother and I spoke two different languages…” (The Joy Luck Club 33). The mothers and daughters literally did speak two different languages, English and Chinese. Or they spoke different languages in a more metaphorical sense
As generations evolve over years, cultural conflicts emerge between pre-existing and new generations, “because first generation Chinese American mothers do not communicate affection … their parenting styles are often perceived as being authoritative or unaffectionate” (Communicating Affection within Chinese American Mother-Daughter Relationships). The daughters in both novels felt disconnect from their mothers because they were surrounded by American parents who tended to be less authoritative. Typically Americans didn’t grow up in a war zone and this is why they were more affectionate. Whereas the Asian mothers in both novels “have experienced two kinds of extreme situations; one kind is famine, war, forced marriage…the other is culture alienation…and conflict between mother and daughter in America”(Xu). The mothers grew up in a war zone in China with Chinese customs. Since the mothers made a brave decision to leave behind their war torn homeland and customs and start fresh in America, their daughters were raised in comfort with American traditions. The mothers’ Chinese background proved “inability for mothers and daughters to share geographically informed cultured stories influences both mother-daughter relationships and individual and cultural identity” (Wood). Amy Tan is elaborating the difficulty that comes with these cultural barriers. A communication barrier was put between the mothers and daughters as a result of their generations (Shear). Whether that was an actual barrier between languages as Jing-Mei Woo from The Joy Luck Club describes, “my mother and I spoke two different languages…” (The Joy Luck Club 33). The mothers and daughters literally did speak two different languages, English and Chinese. Or they spoke different languages in a more metaphorical sense