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All students are required to comment TWICE a week. A week goes from Monday to Sunday. A comment can be a response to my or others' posts --- or a new post. All posts must be relevant to class discussions and assignments. Each post should be 1-3 paragraphs. Remember, it is OK to disagree with one another, but we must always be RESPECTFUL of one another.
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There are two things that I think best unite the first four stories. There is one obvious one and one not so obvious one. The fairly obvious one is that all four families have come to America from China in order for their daughters to have better lives, and to get away from China to the US where women's rights are respected. Also, China was very dangerous with all the attacks from Japan, and all four women thought that moving to America would bring more rights, freedom, and safety to their daughters and themselves. The less obvious thing that unites them all is the fact that family is very important to everyone. In Jing-Mei Woo's story, she learned that once her mother passed away, she was to take over her position in the Joy Luck Club. She was to continue the tradition so that she would not let her family down. In An-Mei Hsu's story, her mother had practically abandoned the rest of her family, and they considered her a "ghost". The rest of the family felt so ashamed of her mother that they excluded her from the family and their lives. In Lindo Jong's story, she lived unhappily with her arranged husband only to keep her parent's promise. She was living a miserable life only so that she would not disappoint her family. They meant so much to her that she ended up lying to Huang Taitai and Tyan-yu about a fake dream that she had in which her marriage with Tyan-yu was doomed. Family means a lot to all of these people, and they take their family relationships very seriously. Promises made to family members need to be kept, and once a member shuts themself out from the rest of their family, they are considered a "ghost" and are hated by their family from there on out.
In the novel, Amy Tan attempts to link the first four chapters, Joy Luck Club, Scar, The Red Candle and The Moon Lady together. She does this by using the first chapter ‘Joy Luck Club’ which was based on the Jing-mei Woo to create a connection on the other three protagonists. She links each story by inserting Chinese beliefs and tradition which are repeated throughout each story. As can be seen in the first parable Amy Tan’s main objective in these first four stories was to show the struggle between the Mothers who were raised in China and the daughters who were raised in America. By showing the different struggles and telling them through the perspective of the mother and daughter she is able to show certain morals that are important to the Chinese culture. All four stories are in a way linked because each Mother has some sort of conflict in their past and each daughter is having trouble to understand their mothers past. The parable in the beginning of the story links the four stories by focusing on the mother and daughter relationship which is found in the four chapters. The parable also hints that all four stories will either take place in America or China
All of the first four stories are connected through themes introduced in the parable. As eelphick described, one of the major links between all of the stories is that all four mothers escaped from China to the United States to provide a better life for their daughters. They wanted their daughters to live a life filled with opportunity and dreams. Another connection between all of the stories is a barrier between the mothers and daughters. All of the mothers have experienced hardships and lives in China that they are unable to communicate to their children. All of the children are all American and have trouble understanding the Chinese language and traditions their mothers carried from China. This cultural division was introduced in the parable when the mother couldn't communicate her true feelings for her daughter since she didn't speak well enough English.
I think that the loss the mothers faced and the lessons they learned while in China that are introduced in the first four stories unite them the best. These are also introduced in the first parable with the swan, representing the fairly obvious common factor they have, which is coming to America in hopes of having a better life. In all four stories, you learn what the mothers have been through, and you learn the major lesson they all learned; that family is the most important aspect of life. You can see in the stories that honoring your family was a very important part of Chinese culture, and the stories are united in the fact that while the mothers came to America to have a better life, they all brought with them their pain and their beliefs of the importance of family
As we are reading and learning about each family, their differences in live experiences and the way they are shaped as people now have come from their past and somehow unite them all together. The first parable discusses the hopes that a mother has for her child, and more specifically the different life she hopes her child will live in America.
I think challenge and hardship unites the first stories together.The first story discusses the girl not having a mother to look up to because her mother was a "Ghost' and could not be spoken of. The second story is told that the girls family left her with her arranged husband where she was not happy and was treated badly. The last story talks about the girl being left on a different island then her family and her family only later finding her after she prayed and prayed. It is clear that each mother, or girl, in these stories went through an event that shaped their lives and taught them lessons, some good and some not. I think they all faced many women rights problems in China as well that they prayed their daughters would never have to face. Each of these stories reflect this.
The first four stories of the Joy Luck Club are united by two main elements; a large loss followed by a change of lifestyle, and the different dynamics of a Chinese family.. This even ties into the parable, where the mother loses her swan and changes her outlooks because of it. The parable also focuses on the effects the language barrier had on a mother and a daughter. In the first story, the mother is forced to constantly move because of the war, and she is even forced to leave behind her two daughters. In "scar", the mother is ostracized from her family because she became a concubine, and she is forced to live without her daughter. However the mother still tries to respect her family even though they have labeled her a "ghost". In "the red candle" the daughter is left behind by her family and must marry someone that she does not love. She is forced to honor what she told her mother while also finding a way out of her marriage. In "the moon lady" the daughter is told not to say what she wants or she will be known as greedy. After falling off the boat she was on and getting separated from her family she meets the moon lady and changes her outlook on life.
The first four stories relate to the parable in a number of ways. The first and most apparent is the mothers travelling from China to America. All of the mothers traveled from China to America, for various reasons. In the parable, the mother says to her swan companion, "...over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband's belch. Over there nobody will look down on her, because I will make her speak in perfect American English" (pg 17). All of the mothers wanted a better life for their daughters, and wanted them to be more American.
The second is the alienation between the daughters and their mothers. Even though the mothers wanted better lives for their children, the differences between Chinese and American culture put a rift between them, separating them in a clash of views. The mothers and daughters do not agree with each other, but while the daughters really just wanted to fight against their parents, the mothers wanted them to have a little of both worlds, but didn't raise them to think that way.
The thing that best unites the four stories is the events in the stories. In Joy Luck Club, Scar, The Red Candle, and The Moon Lady, there is some sort of tragedy followed by something good. In Joy Luck Club, Jing-mei's mother dies, but then she finds out that she has sisters in China and she can go visit them. In Scar, An-mei's mother gets exiled from the family, but then comes back when An-mei's grandmother gets sick. In The Red Candle, Lindo Jong's house got destroyed in a flood and then she had to live with what seemed like a horrible husband, but she eventually escapes that life without hurting anyone and without disrespecting her parents wishes. In The Moon Lady, Ying-ying St. Clair gets yelled at for wanting something and doing un-ady-like things and falls off the boat at the Moon Lady celebration. After finding her way to the shore and meeting who she thought was the Moon Lady, she realized that her family was the important thing and wished to her that she wanted to be found.
In all four stories a woman has left her life in China in attempt to create a better one in America. All of the women left behind things in this attempt, like material things, culture, even children and family. All of the woman's stories connect to the initial parable. They all wanted a better life for their daughters so that they wouldn't have to go through the same troubles and sadness they went through in their lives in China. But in order to achieve this the daughter would end up speaking English, while the mother still speaks Chinese. And how can you teach your child about your own past and your culture or heritage if you can't even communicate? The point of it is that you can't and culture is lost if it can't be communicated. This is a common theme amongst all of the stories.
The first four stories in The Joy Luck Club are mainly united through the first parable. They are all mainly about the mothers' good intentions on starting a family in America. This is represented by the swan in the first parable, which ties all the stories together. The first four stories are about the mothers' hardships while in China, and how it affected them when they moved to America. This ties all of these stories together.
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