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Joy Luck Club

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The Joy Luck Club: The Generation Gap
“The old woman remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum. This bird, boasted the market vendor, was once a duck that stretched its neck in hopes of becoming a goose, and now look!—it is too beautiful to eat.” (The Joy Luck Club). The Joy Luck Club, written by Amy Tan, takes you on a rollercoaster ride of emotions with the heartbreaking truth of the harsh realities of the world around us. Bringing serious topics to the attention of her audience, she is informing them through her work, what the hardships of life are. As this story progresses, the viewer will see a various amount of themes, but the generation gap is visibly present. With her mother nearly dying, …show more content…
As the daughters are moving on with their lives, their mothers are trying to bring them to realize how much they’re worth and inform them about past experiences. For example, Auntie Ying Ying will never forget about how her husband betrayed her back in China. “My mother never talked about her life in China, but my father said he saved her from a terrible life there, some tragedy she could not speak about” (The Joy Luck Club). Her poor daughter Lena is going through the same marriage problems of miscommunication in the household. One reason a generation gap is present is because the mother’s were born and raised in China, while their daughters were born and raised in America. Amy Tan writes, “In America I will have a daughter just like me. But over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch. Over there nobody will look down on her, because I will make her speak only perfect American English…” (The Joy Luck Club). Each story told by a different mother and daughter, there’s a certain correlation in every story talked about, and that would be how the mothers motives are their daughters. June’s mom is certainly controlling over her childhood life by making her do pointless stuff a child of that age is not interested in. One by one, the moms are giving their daughters life lessons through their stories of the past. As the story slowly continues, the daughters and mothers grow together and the gap is closing, but not

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