The Joy Luck Club Entry #2
The Joy Luck Club by Jing-Mei WooSummary and Quote Analysis
The first story was known as The Joy Luck Club by Jing Mei Woo. I thought that this story was very well-written. As a young woman, Jing Mei Woo faces the death of her mother, Suyuan. Canning, her father encourages her to join a daily Mahjong game, in which her mother is usually invited to. Without a word, she assumes that she would be considered the "replacement" in the game of her mother. Her parents attended this party ever since they immigrated from China.
The Joy Luck Club was created in order for the women to escape reality. During the time, Suyuan was living in Kweilin, China, there were many hardships in store for her and other women. There was also an invasion of American armies. The club took their mind off the current war, and each club was a hopeful optimistic outlook on the fact that they would soon be lucky. However, an American official warned Suyuan that there would be the Japanese that would invade Kweilin. So she, in turn escaped into Chungking. She had said to her daughter that all she had left was her best silk dresses. When the daughter queried about her children, the mother did not talk about the daughters. She doesn't believe that at this club, she would ever belong or be considered as her mother. She is already looked down at the fact that she quit college. But at the end of this club, Suyuan's friends tell Jing-Mei that her mother was secretly looking for the 2 twin daughters. They had given her money, enough for her to go back to China and tell them of her mother. When asked what to tell her mother, Auntie Lin reprimands her and tells her that even her bones are her mother. She tells her to tell of her mother's life and troubles. In the end, the one club of women look at her with hope. Hope that she will finish the story of her mother to her other children.
"It's not that we had no heart or eyes for pain. We were all afraid. We all had our miseries. But to despair was to wish for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable."
I thought that this quote summed up the main theme of the story. The club was established in order to forget the hardships. In a way, Jing-Mei was relieved of her hardship of her mother dying. She was given a chance to figure more about her mother's life, and herself. The other women couldn't let Jing-Mei prolong at this situation. They had hope for her, that she could ultimately find this experience as a life-changing one.
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