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The Joy Luck Club Movie Review

Updated August 14, 2022
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The Joy Luck Club Movie Review essay

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The Joy Luck Club is a story about four Chinese friends and their daughters. It tells the story of the mother’s struggles in China and their acceptance in America, and the daughter’s struggles of finding themselves as Chinese-Americans. The movie starts off with a story about a swan feather, and how it was brought over with only good intentions. Then the movie goes on, the setting is at a party for June the daughter of Suyuan. Suyuan has just past away about four months ago, and her mother’s friends have found her long lost daughters.

But it is too late for her to go see them so they tell June, about it and they arrange a meeting for her in China. The party is a going away party for June’s trip to China. At the party June realizes that she was expected to take the place of her mother at the mahjong table. June sat at the East where it all starts “The Joy Luck Club”. The Joy Luck club was a weekly meeting of the best friends, were they talked about their hopes for their daughters and there stories of the past.

The swan feather in the beginning was a symbol of all the hopes and dreams that the mother wanted to give to her daughter. This woman crossing a vast ocean, with only the company of a swan, yet she is not scared. She has dreams for her daughter, and this dream is the driving force of her actions. She is moved to realize this dream, that she is not even aware of the potential bad outcomes. There is no talk about hoping to have a daughter it says I will have a daughter just like me, and she will always be to full to swallow any sorrow.

There is no single thought of failure in her mind. Her dreams have instilled in her blind faith, and inherent optimism. She will go as far as that she lets these qualities take her. The swan feather is a symbol of Chinese culture, in that it was brought from China with only good intentions. It was not a symbol for failure but for hope. The swan grew up to me more than what was hoped for it was too beautiful to eat.

But when it was taken away, the only thing that was left was a feather a symbol of something that was meant to be nothing but became more. It was a symbol for the mothers it was what they wanted there children to become more then what they where in China. This symbol was learned through the stories that the mothers have told to their daughters. It was learned through the hard ship that the mothers have experienced in there past in China, the past that haunted them to America. In the story of June and her mother Suyuan, in the kitchen.

June stands out strongly, because of her mother’s intention in giving her the pendant is unclear, it spurs her to the question. That the gift was given in the context of their discussion of quality, and may show in specific way her mother was valuing her, not just for being her daughter, but because she was finally, best at something. This was the night that Suyuan recognized her daughter is different, but Best Quality. Suyuan wanted the best for her daughter. Suyuan knew that her daughter was the best but never really said it to her.

June always thought that she wasn’t enough for her mother that she never measured up to her expectations. And everything that her mother hoped for that she couldn’t meet, she was a disappointment. Her mother noticed that she had all the qualities that she hoped for in a daughter, she told this to her daughter when she noticed that she always took the worst crab so that the best crab was served to the guest. June had the Best Heart. This was something that Suyuan wanted to give to her daughter. June now realizes this, and she realizes that she has met her mother’s hopes.

The pendant is her mother’s recognition that, if nothing else, June is true to her own nature, is the best. June finds herself performing the same kitchen-rituals that her mother did, June truly begins to understand and honor her. June takes on her mother’s spirit as she sits down at the East in the Joy Luck Club. You can also see this when she arrives in China to greet her sisters, with the swan feather at hand. Another symbol in the Joy Luck Club happens between Ying- Ying and Lena. It starts out by telling the story of Ying- Ying’s past in China and how she recognizes the indirect way that her mother instilled in her a fear of unforeseen and disastrous consequences of her actions.

The balance sheet on the refrigerator is the sign that makes it possible for Ying-Ying to redeem herself to her daughter. To show her daughter what a marriage is suppose to be made out of. The economic metaphor illustrates how poor her marriage is in the balance that really matters. Like the table that Harold built, the marriage is showy without being functional. Ying-Ying demonstrates to her daughter that surface balance is useless and that Lena’s conception of herself and Harold being equal is flawed.

When the table falls it illustrates the breaking of the marriage, and the freeing of the spirit of the mother. This spirit gives Lena the strength to decide what she wants out of the marriage. You find out in the movie that she had left Harold and is going out with a young Chinese man that respects and loves Lena and her mother Ying-Ying. I am a Chinese-American 2nd generation. Meaning my mom and dad are Chinese but they grew up in America. I look at my family and culture and it seems like the American way has somehow covered the Chinese way.

I look at the way that my grandma is and compare it with the way my mom is and see some resemblance in it. But then there are so many ways that it is different. For example when my grandmother comes over it seems like we can’t ever throw away anything she finds some kind of use for it. But on the other hand my mom throws everything away, she always says that we can buy a new one if it breaks. This difference shows me that the economic way that my mom grew up in is different than the way that my grandmother grew up in.

My mom always told me that she doesn’t want me to go without something that I want. I know this cause when I was little I use to watch the toy commercials on T.V and every time I saw something that I wanted, I would tell her, and she would buy it for me, like nothing. I think that she wants more for me than what she could have had when she was little. My mom use to tell me the stories of her growing up and only eating a little so that her brother could have more than her, and grow up to be strong. My mom grew up thinking that she was less than what her brother was, since she was born a girl.

For me I am the middle child, and I have a younger brother, but my mom treats us the same. My mom married my dad and of course my grandmother likes it cause my dad is Chinese. But I see my grandmother act differently towards my aunt and her husband who is Spanish. I don’t see much character difference in my dad and my uncle they both respect my grand …

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The Joy Luck Club Movie Review. (2019, Nov 24). Retrieved from https://sunnypapers.com/the-joy-luck-club/