Life Lessons from Mothers in the Joy Luck Club

Amy Tan's novel The Joy Luck Club is a collection of short stories about mothers and daughters and their struggles to understand each other. While all mothers and daughters must overcome generational barriers, the mothers and daughters in this novel must also overcome cultural barriers. Because the mothers are all first-generation immigrants from China, they deal with very specific problems that relate to their upbringings. The mothers, who were brought up in strong moral households with a deep-rooted sense of "family first," contrast greatly with their daughters' American idea of "looking out for number one." This novel is filled with examples of mothers teaching their daughters both morals and life lessons, which sometimes contrasts with the American values that their daughters have learned. These lessons are often difficult for the daughters to accept, but the mothers press on in their attempts to teach, with the hopes that their daughters will one day understand the information that is being presented to them.

Despite the fact that she is deceased, Suyuan Woo plays a major role in her daughter's life in The Joy Luck Club. Throughout the novel, her daughter, June, spends much time reflecting on Suyuan's important life lessons and teachings.

One of the main ways that Suyuan teaches her daughter is through what June considers to be "a Chinese fairy tale" (25). Suyuan tells June the story quite often, and usually ends the story "on a happy note" (25). However, one afternoon, Suyuan refuses to buy June a radio and June is upset. Suyuan tells her the story again, but this time with a different ending. Suyuan uses her story as a teaching method to show June that being sad over something as minute as a radio is waste of time. "Why do you think you are missing something you never had?" (25).