Raymond Chandler, a fiction writer, once said, "The most durable thing in writing is style." True, the style is often defined as one of the most important elements in writing. In Amy Tan's novel, "The Joy Luck Club", the style significantly contributes to the development of both the tone and the theme of the influences that a mother can have on her daughter. The author effectively portrays the somber tone and the theme by using a concise style of diction, images, details, language, sentence structure, point of view, and organization.
The author emphasizes the tone and the theme of the novel by using a variety of diction words that include repetition of words, archaic words, connotation, and abstract diction. Primarily, the usage of repetitive words reflects on the influences a mother has on her daughter and also on the melancholy tone. In the story, many incidents describe Ying-ying and her daughter, Lena, as "ghosts" and unseen.
Rose
TAN Generator
Henry Ossawa Tanner in his studioYing-ying, after experiencing the pains of her first marriage, willingly gives up the soul that causes her so much pain and becomes a mortal ghost. Lena, having perhaps influences from the traditional Chinese views of her mother, Ying-ying, also experiences similar grieves in her marriage and eventually becomes "a ghost" and the shadow of her husband (Tan 177). The repetition of words relate them together in a sense of lacking recognizability by others and how the daughter seems to act from the awareness of her mother's behaviors; it also indicates the effect of the melancholy tone on the sorrows the characters experience and suffer. In addition, Tan also uses an assortment of archaic words to demonstrate the theme and tone. Occurring in many places of the novel, the usage of early Chinese words illustrates the influences of the mothers to the...