The Joy Luck Club

Suyuan is an eternal optimist, a strong-willed woman who Jing-Mei treated as a foil most of her life. Though it was not Suyuan’s intention, many of Jing-Mei’s life choices were set as a reaction against what she believed her mother wanted her to do. In actuality, Suyuan’s pushiness and critical nature come from the extraordinary challenges she had overcome. She believes that if she was able to survive such horrors, her daughter should take the opportunities she’s given and excel.

Even under the terrible conditions in Kweilin during the Japanese occupation, Suyuan decided to create happiness for herself and her friends. The Joy Luck Club is the embodiment of her belief that laughter and companionship can overcome sorrowful circumstances. Even her greatest sorrow, the loss of her twin babies, didn’t deter Suyuan from making a happy life in America, and she never gave up looking for them.

Waverly is the daughter most like her mother, having taken Lindo’s lessons about “invisible strength” to heart throughout her life. Despite their similar personalities, or perhaps because of them, Waverly and her mother clash constantly. Waverly’s tendency to infer the worst in Lindo’s words and actions stems from her own propensity for internal strategizing. Nevertheless, Waverly genuinely loves and respects her mother, so her perception of Lindo’s barbs hurt her deeply.

Waverly tends to project her fear of her mother’s criticism, thinking that her mother is “pushing her buttons” when that isn’t Lindo’s intention. One example of this is when Waverly assumes that Lindo dislikes Rich. Waverly fails to give Lindo enough credit, and her mother sees that Rich will be a good husband.

Waverly is competitive, shallow at times, and can be inconsiderate. On the other hand, she dearly loves her daughter and is grateful for having found a second love in Rich. Her desire to forge a stronger connection with her mother results in her inviting Lindo along on her honeymoon to China, though she knows they will argue.

Waverly says that Lindo was born in the Year of the Horse, destined to be stubborn and tactlessly honest. Lindo does have a sharp tongue and shrewd mind, along with quick-witted intelligence that saved her from a terrible marriage in China. Lindo resolved to make a better life for herself, using the superstitions of others and her keen observations, because she knew her own worth as a person and refused to be held under the heel of a childish husband and domineering mother-in-law. Lindo refers to herself as “twenty-four carat gold,” pure and of the highest quality.

With their strong personalities, Lindo and her daughter butt heads, but Lindo is proud of Waverly. Her feelings are genuinely hurt when she thinks that Waverly thinks poorly of her. Lindo’s life in America has been harder than she thought it would be, and she changed more than she thought she would. She is more reflective and less smug at this point in her life and she seeks the counsel of Waverly.

The turning point of Rose’s life comes when her baby brother drowns while “on her watch.” Rose was infused with her parents’ optimism, their sense that only great things were in store for their family, but this tragedy changed her. Rose fears responsibility as a result and marries a man who makes all her decisions for her. An-Mei says that Rose is “without wood,” too impressionable, too pliable.

For An-Mei, part of growing straight like a tree includes listening to the mother growing beside you, which Rose stopped doing when she saw futility in her mother’s attempts to sway fate. Because the “Chinese way” failed her mother, Rose looks to “American” sources of wisdom to deal with her unhappiness including her psychiatrist and her girlfriends. Making a decision seems to negate all other possibilities, which paralyzes Rose and she literally begins to sleep her life away. Yet when Rose hits rock bottom, it is her mother who breaches her confusion and convinces her that she is strong. 

An-Mei witnessed her mother make the ultimate sacrifice for her and it profoundly impacted her sense of self. As a child An-Mei had been taught self-sacrifice, the negation of the self. Her mother’s suicide was meant to ensure her daughter’s future, but also struck back at the hierarchy that had made her life miserable. This taught An-Mei about honor, not just familial honor but honoring oneself. An-Mei found her worth and her voice.

This inspired a sense of optimism in An-Mei, made her believe that she and her family were in control of their fate, through God’s grace. The drowning of her son Bing was a huge blow to her beliefs, but losing her faith in God’s ability to bring good things into her life did not mean that An-Mei lost all faith in her control of her destiny. Rose resists An-Mei attempts to convince her that she can and must stand up for herself, but An-Mei pushes through her rejection.

Lena grew up both believing and disbelieving her mother’s constant references to supernatural occurrences. Ying-ying’s insistence that bad things were going to happen because of the positioning of objects or other signs of imbalance were in opposition to her American sense of rationality, but Lena had seen her mother’s predictions come true too often to discount that Ying-ying had some kind of otherworldly connection. This put the “Chinese” and “American” parts of Lena’s worldview in conflict with each other. Lena’s rational side discounts the idea that she was destined to marry Harold as punishment for having “killed” Arnold, but her belief in fate remains.

Lena grew up in a quiet household, as she and her father silently observed but failed to discuss her mother’s odd behavior. This shaped Lena’s inability to communicate, even at the expense of her happiness. It takes Ying-ying’s intervention to break Lena out of the cycle established in her childhood.

Lena serves as an unreliable narrator in her observations and descriptions of her mother, as Lena had no idea about her mother’s past and true identity. Without a genuine perspective, and seen through the lens of her father’s American sensibilities, Ying-ying’s actions appear bewildering and troubling.