AMY TANAuthor Study

Background Info:• Born in Oakland, California on February 19, 1952• Father: Chinese born Baptist minister• Mother: born into upper-class family in Shanghai,

China• Struggled with her parents desire to keep Chinese

traditions and her want to be Americanized• Parents wanted her to become a neurosurgeon

while she wanted to become a fictional writer• Majored in English at San Jose State in California

"World Biography." Amy Tan Biography. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2013.

The Joy Luck Club• Centered around 4 Chinese immigrants who move to

San Francisco, California in pursuit of creating a better life for their young daughters

• All 4 of the daughters have a slightly different struggle, but together it signifies the conflicts each one encounters from their mothers Chinese influence, including:

Contrasting beliefs on woman status Educational importance Blending of inter-racial families

The Kitchen God’s Wife• The story of the Kitchen God: a kitchen god

named Zhang who is married to a woman named Guo. Zhang had an affair with Lady Li who expelled Guo from her house. Zhang is then left as a “loveless beggar” for the rest of his life. No one wants to turn out like he did, and everyone respects the god wife so this does not become their fate.

• Key similarities between mothers and daughters: Distance Loneliness Adaptation to a new society Faithfulness to culture

Negotiating the Geography of Mother-Daughter Relationships in Amy Tan’s

The Joy Luck Club (lit. analysis)

• Author: Michelle Gaffner Wood • The geography of mothers and daughters that

effects their new lives in the United States• A link between the past and present of Chinese

mothers and American-born daughters• Geography’s influence mother-daughter

relationships in their individual and cultural identity

Important Quotations from The Joy Luck Club

1) “ I wanted my children to have the best combination. American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these two things do not mix? I taught my [my daughter] how American circumstances work. If you are born here, it’s no way lasting shame.”

One of the mothers begins to question the mixed cultural identity that she once wished for her daughter. She fears Chinese identity has come to change her daughters exterior, while her American identity dominates her entire interior side.

Important Quotations from The Joy Luck Club (cont.)

2) “ I loved my secrets I found within the sixty-four black and white squares. I carefully drew a hand-made chessboard and pinned it to the wall next to my bed, where at night I would stare for hours at imaginary battles.”

One of the daughters became the hero of her town in California by playing chess and competing against ranked people and winning. She made her mother very proud and became the most-liked member of the family because she succeeded which was all her mother wanted out of her. (emphasis of the amount of pressure Chinese women put on their children)

Important Quotations from The Kitchen God’s Wife

1) “ I didn’t know why he thought this was good, to imitate what foreigners did, as if everything Western were good, everything Chinese was not so good.”

A Chinese mothers says this about her brother when he takes on foreign hobbies, such as English gardening and built a portion of his house in China to look like an English manor.

Important Quotations from The Kitchen God’s Wife (cont.)

2) “Mostly I see my mother sitting one table away and I feel as lonely as I imagine her to be. I think of the enormous distance that separates us and makes us unable to share the most important matters of our life. How did this happen? This illustrates the distance that

there is between the mothers and daughters in general because often times the mothers heart is left in China, but the daughters heart is here in the United States. The cultural difference between mothers and daughters is that they both share loneliness. What separates them brings them together, even when they are farthest apart, they find themselves together in their loneliness.

Trailer: The Joy Luck Club

•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_axV-_Wz7L0