The Joy Luck Club: Literary Movement, Author, Summary, and Analysis (Term Paper Sample)

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Term Paper - The Joy Luck Club
Introduction
The joy luck club authored by Amy Tan in 1989 focuses on Chinese American immigrants in San Francisco. These immigrants started a club and named it ‘The Joy Luck Club’ that played mahjong, a Chinese game for money when feasting on various foods. Structured same as a mahjong game, the novel has four parts divided into sixteen chapters. Three mothers, together with four daughters, tell stories on their vignettes form of lives. A parable about this game introduces each part of this book. I chose this novel because it ties the past and modern society. It is an excellent read because it pictures precisely what happens in the society in black and white right from birth to death, for instance, Suyuan Woo’s life and marriage than death and her daughter Jing-Mei Woo life. I like this book because the main character Suyuan never gave up when the only option she had at some point was to flee from Kweilin, her home and when her husband died he got married again, Canning Woo. She never forgot her twin daughters whom she left in Kweilin and together with her husband Woo made efforts to search for them. I do not like this book because parents and guardians suffer a lot as they fend for their families then later die before even enjoying the fruits of their labour (Shen, p. 13). This novel is essential to American Literature because the characters are immigrants from China and have moved and settled in America. They have raised their children in America, and most of the lives of characters in the joy luck club revolve around the United States of America. I find the worth book reading because, in as much as it has an aesthetic value, it is also very educative. It upholds some morality in the society such as teamwork as those four women did it.
Literary Movement/ Historical Analysis
This novel was set in the pre-world war II in china and the contemporary San Francisco. It was written at a time when there were intermarriages between Chinese and Americans, and therefore Tan writes to bring out culture clashes Chinese women experience in America. It was at this time when superstitions were still very rampant in china, and as these women moved and settled in America, they were still very conservative with their traditions, but as their daughters grew up, they experienced many changes. Their mothers were very paranoid and wanted to control everything that surrounded their daughters from choosing their husbands their hairstyles among other things yet their children, westernized, saw it as very backward reasoning and moves, thus post-modern art. Tan pictures what happen in the tradition set up a society and what happens in such a society when modernity crops in and more so cultural differences. The book expounds on moving from one culture to another is cumbersome. This is the reason why these Chinese mothers find it hard to cope with their Americanised children in their current matrimonial homes.
Author
Amy Tan who authored the novel “The Joy Luck Club” was born in California in 1952. Her mother is Chinese and her father, an American. She went to Marian A.Peterson High School for a year then moved to