"Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan.

Essay by mcwillUniversity, Master'sA+, September 2003

download word file, 10 pages 3.4

Downloaded 113 times

Mother and Child Reunion

No child can truly realize the unconditional love and feeling of commitment that a mother has to protect her children. Most mother's do not have a full understand of the love that swells over them after the birth of a child it is an over whelming bond that makes those stories of a mother picking a car up to save her child believable. And while the union of mother and child is amazing and miraculous, it also can have its dark side.

As children, and even into adulthood, there is a tendency to fight the lessons mothers try to teach and the advice they try to give without giving any consideration as to what life experiences of theirs may have prompted this advice. Children do not recognize the mere fact that if it is a cold day and they do not have their sweater on no one thinks, "Who is that child's father?" They wonder, "Who is that child's incompetent mother?" And more often than not their attempt to give advice is viewed as an intrusion into the lives and privacy of there children.

And the older the child the more irritable the conversations. There is the all to common development of a special codependence that only a mother and daughter could have. Or there is the mother thinking about how many time she has told the child to do one thing or another...and the child not responding because they have heard it a million times before.

Occasionally though, we can step back for a moment and see all the good intentions behind a mother's actions. In The Joy Luck Club, author Amy Tan tries to get the reader to take this step back. Through her use of flashbacks and the development of strong-willed characters...