The Joy Luck Club Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Joy Luck Club - Essay Example She was my mother. The aunties are looking at me as if I had become crazy right before their eyes†¦ And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese†¦ who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation.† (Tan 40-41) This quote establishes Jing-mei as a representative of the younger generation, while at the same time feeling a deep sympathy for the older generation. She understands the American-born daughters who feel they have lost their touch with their Chinese identities and feel as if they do not know their mothers. She also recognizes the mothers’ fears that for their daughters old values have no more meaning, â€Å"that to these closed American-born minds â€Å"joy luck† is not a word, it does not existà ¢â‚¬  (Tan 41), that they belong to an Americanized way of life and that in this effort to provide them with the best opportunities in life, the mothers have unintentionally secluded them from their Chinese heritage. Jing-mei steps in her mother’s shoes for a weekly gathering, playing mahjong.