In the Joy Luck Club, there are many cycles that repeat themselves beginning from the mothers and ending with the daughters. The children of the four mothers do not appreciate having their mothers until they do not have them there for them. There is also that factor of bad marriages. I believe that the purpose for the cyclical stories is to express the reality that daughters eventually turn out to be just like their mothers no matter what. It is unavoidable for the daughters to have a life similar to their mothers.
Inappreciativeness for the mothers leads to them not being there any longer. In The Joy Luck Club, the chapter Rules of the Game discusses how a mother, Lindo Jong, pushes her daughter, Waverly Jong to play chess and the daughter finally gets tired of it. As a result, she tells her how she feels, "I wish you wouldn't do that,telling everybody I'm your daughter" (99). When Waverly gets the chance, she ends up running away and doesn't come back until later at night. She comes home from her family ignoring her and her mother saying, "We are not concerning this girl. This girl not have concerning for us," (100). Waverly pushed her mother away and it ended up with her not having her mother's support anymore when it came to even acknowledging her as a daughter.
In Two Kinds, Jing-Mei Woo disappoints her mother, Suyuan Woo, when she fails at a piano recital and decides that she does not want to play from that point on. When the mother fails to force her daughter to keep playing, the daughter tells her something unbearable to hear. From then on, Jing-Mei never got better at anything
Another cycle in this book is that of marriages ending up wrong either from the start or towards the end. In Red Candle, Lindo Jong is forced to be married with a man who she does not feel any sort of attraction towards whatsoever. Instead, he was a big kid who grew up to be a bad husband to Lindo, "I knew what kind of husband he would be, because he made special efforts to make me cry," (53). Lindo Jong was forced into a bad marriage and stuck with her for some time. The same cycle repeated with Lena St. Clair in Rice Husband where she didn't marry for love in the end. From her childhood, her mother had already warned her that she would marry a bad and it ended up happening. All in all, bad marriages are a cycle throughout the Joy Luck Club.
Although women everywhere try not to be exactly like their mothers, it is inevitable that it will happen. The cycle of a mother's life can lead in to be the cycle of her daughter. It is obvious that the apple does not fall far from the tree.
Inappreciativeness for the mothers leads to them not being there any longer. In The Joy Luck Club, the chapter Rules of the Game discusses how a mother, Lindo Jong, pushes her daughter, Waverly Jong to play chess and the daughter finally gets tired of it. As a result, she tells her how she feels, "I wish you wouldn't do that,telling everybody I'm your daughter" (99). When Waverly gets the chance, she ends up running away and doesn't come back until later at night. She comes home from her family ignoring her and her mother saying, "We are not concerning this girl. This girl not have concerning for us," (100). Waverly pushed her mother away and it ended up with her not having her mother's support anymore when it came to even acknowledging her as a daughter.
In Two Kinds, Jing-Mei Woo disappoints her mother, Suyuan Woo, when she fails at a piano recital and decides that she does not want to play from that point on. When the mother fails to force her daughter to keep playing, the daughter tells her something unbearable to hear. From then on, Jing-Mei never got better at anything
"In the years that followed, I failed her s many times, each time asserting my own will, my right to fall short of expectations... And for all those years, we never talked about the disaster at the recital or my terrible accusations afterward at the piano bench, All that remained unchecked, like a betrayal, that was now unspeakable,"(142).Jing-Mei's mother eventually died and she never got to appreciate how much her mother had done for her and how much hope she had for her.
Another cycle in this book is that of marriages ending up wrong either from the start or towards the end. In Red Candle, Lindo Jong is forced to be married with a man who she does not feel any sort of attraction towards whatsoever. Instead, he was a big kid who grew up to be a bad husband to Lindo, "I knew what kind of husband he would be, because he made special efforts to make me cry," (53). Lindo Jong was forced into a bad marriage and stuck with her for some time. The same cycle repeated with Lena St. Clair in Rice Husband where she didn't marry for love in the end. From her childhood, her mother had already warned her that she would marry a bad and it ended up happening. All in all, bad marriages are a cycle throughout the Joy Luck Club.
Although women everywhere try not to be exactly like their mothers, it is inevitable that it will happen. The cycle of a mother's life can lead in to be the cycle of her daughter. It is obvious that the apple does not fall far from the tree.
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