Different Characterizations of the Joy Luck Club

Like the various shapes of the grains of rice in a bowl, Amy Tan's novel, "The Joy Luck Club," portrays many characters that are all unique and different from each other. However, there is one family that stood out from the other three; Jing-mei and Suyuan Woo were significantly unique. The problems that they faced, family history, and the literary style used for their stories were some of the noticeable differences.

When reading through the novel, an interesting feature about Jing-mei is that she's the only one who was not married and had marital problems like the other three daughters. While this may not seem like such a big deal at first, but by the end of the book, it really makes Jing-mei a unique character. Instead of giving her problems with marriage, Tan gives Jing-mei a different problem and obstacle to face¡ªthe responsibility to carry out her mother's longest hopes of finding her lost daughters.[1] This allows the reader to pay more attention to the story of Jing-mei because it is a twist from the rest of the other stories. Not only is Jing-mei singled out by her problems, she is also singled out by the other three daughters. Her incapability of speaking Chinese is often times ridiculed throughout her life yet she is representing the telling of her mother's story.

Suyuan's main difference from the rest of the mothers is that she's dead throughout the book. The readers never get to experience her personal thoughts about various situations throughout the book. She is just a figure referred to with a lot of respect. The other mother's problems were trying to cope with their daughters and push them to be the best they could be. Suyuan also did this, but to her dismay, Jing-mei didn't turn out to be any sort of prodigy. However, Suyuan had another purpose for pushing Jing-mei so hard. Sure there was the usual reason of trying to give her daughter a better life than she had, but she was also pushing her because she had cast all of her hopes for her two daughters into Jing-mei.[2] At the same time, she has always been looking for her lost daughters until she died.

Perhaps the most unique portrayal of Suyuan was her history. Unlike the other three mothers, her past story was not of her childhood, but when she was a young woman probably in her 20s. This again draws the readers attention because it makes the reader wants to know what happened to Suyuan before her exodus from Kweilin and then eventually China. Tan uses this as another vantage point to be able to develop the character more in depth yet still have some sort of mystery that keeps the reading wanting to know more. Also, Tan right away tells the readers that Suyuan was the leader or founder of the Joy Luck Club in both Kweilin and America. That automatically makes Suyuan a character worth paying extra close attention to because it was through the things she did that the book got its title from. Her unique history then gets passed along to her daughter, Jing-mei.

Now Jing-mei's history has always been rather interesting. It has been mentioned in the book that even though she is already an adult, she still has the mentality of a child.[3] With that in mind, Tan gives Jing-mei a unique childhood with very mature topics within the topics of the arguments she has with her mother. It is then when Tan makes the pair the most unique in the novel. Tan exposes the different kinds of daughters as well as the different kinds of love a mother can portray. Also, when Jing-mei blurted out that she wished she was dead like the two daughters her mom lost in China, it brings out the fact that Jing-mei actually knew the tragic event that had happened in her mother's life unlike the other daughters who only knew that there was a tragic event. This shows Jing-mei as a very mature young child, yet with her growing up to be like a child, Tan is able to grab the attention of the readers and make them wanting for more information on why Jing-mei turned out the way she did.

The unique situation with the Woo family is that Jing-mei represents her mother in all of the stories when the mothers were supposed to tell their stories. So instead of a first person point of view, we're given a second person point of view - which at times may be unreliable. Nonetheless, at certain times, it's as if Suyuan was actually still alive and telling her own story. This effect that Tan uses really keeps the readers interested in the Woo family's storyline. By allowing Jing-mei to tell her mother's stories, it shows that Jing-mei knows the most about her mother though fears she knows nothing.[4] Tan also provides the Woo family with another character that plays a significant role towards the end, Canning Woo, Jing-mei's father and Suyuan's second husband. Tan thus makes the Woo family a tad bit more complex. Though she adds a few more flat characters, those flat characters make the round characters more interesting and attention grabbing. Tan also provides Jing-mei with the most "stage time" since she has to represent both her own stories and her mother's. This allows the reader to keep reading about them and maintain a high interest.

Though each pair of characters are all different from each other, the Woo family particularly stands out from the crowd. Tan uses a variety of techniques to grab the reader's attention and keep them interested in Jing-mei and Suyuan by adding some twists and turns into their storyline.

[1] "You must see your sisters and tell them about your mother's death," said Auntie Ying. "But most important, you must tell them about her life. The mother they did not know, they must now know." (30)

[2] "Me, the younger sister who was supposed to be the essence of the others." (323)

[3] "They look up and laugh at me, always tardy, a child still at thirty-six." (14)

[4] "What will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don't know anything. She was my mother." (31)