Chapter 5- The Joy Luck Club

Literary term- dialogue: "As she wiped each piece with a soft cloth, she said, 'Next time win more, lose less.'
'Ma, it's not how pieces you lose,' I said. 'Sometimes you need to lose pieces to get ahead.' 
'Better to lose less, see if you really need.'" (97) conversation between Waverly Jong and her mother

Quote- "My mother would proudly walk with me, visiting many shops, buying very little. 'This is my daughter Wave-ly Jong,' she said to whoever looked her way."

Waverly Jong becomes a national chess champion at just the age of nine and is known as "the Great American Hope, a child prodigy and a girl to boot." This accomplishment brings her mother much joy and she starts to show Waverly Jong off in public. Whenever the two go to the market, Waverly Jong's mother tells whoever passes that Waverly is her daughter. Her mother is very proud, however Waverly is embarrassed by this and wishes she would stop telling everyone she is her daughter. This quote shows how proud Waverly's mother is of her and that she wants everyone to know she is her daughter. This quote and theme of pride in one's child reminds me of stickers on the back of cars I often see that read "My Child is on the Honor Roll" at whatever school it may be. It seems as though parents are flaunting their children's accomplishments for everyone else to see. In my opinion, I think these stickers are the opposite of humbling and boastful. While accomplishing good grades is something to be proud of, I don't see the need for that accomplishment to be fashioned on the back of a car. This example is similar to how Waverly's mother acts; she is proud and wants everyone to know that a national chess champion is her daughter.

Chapter 4- The Joy Luck Club

Literary term- invective: "And when she found nothing, after inspecting my ears and my nose and counting my fingers, she called me names, using words I had never heard before. But they sounded evil, the way she hurled and spat the words out. She yanked off my jacket, pulled off my pants. She said I smelled like 'something evil this' and I looked like 'something evil that.'" (77)

Quote- "All these years I kept my true nature hidden, running along like a small shadow so nobody could catch me. And because I moved so secretly now my daughter does not see me." (67)

Ying-Ying St. Clair tells us this quote at the beginning of the chapter before she explains how she lost herself. Ying-Ying tries to keep her feelings to herself, but in doing so, it makes it as though her daughter does not know her. Her daughter is now concerned with material items, and Ying-Ying has become very distant from her daughter. They have differing opinions on what it important, however, neither of them express these feelings which results in a distance in their relationship. This quote shows how Ying-Ying kept her feelings hidden and how she would hide from her problems.  The quote also expresses how her relationship with her daughter has severed because of this. This quote reminds me of something my mother once told me: "Keep your relationships with the ones you love open and honest, that way you will always know them." I believe what my mom is saying in this quote is not to forget the ones you love by forgetting who they are. One has to be honest about how they feel so there is no distance in the relationship, which can lead to people not even knowing each other anymore.

Chapter 3- The Joy Luck Club

Literary term- vernacular: "I remember them because one lady made watery 'shrrhh shrrhh' sounds. When I was older, I came to recognize this as a Peking accent, which sounds quite strange to Taiyuan people's ears." (50)

Quote- "I remember the day when I finally knew a genuine thought and could follow where it went. That was the day I was a young girl with my face under a red marriage scarf. I promised not to forget myself." (66)

In chapter three, Lindo Jong has an arranged marriage. Her parents had the matchmaker arrange who her husband was at just the age of two. Lindo Jong was sent to live with her future husband, Tyan-yu when she was twelve and married him at the age of sixteen. Tyan-yu's mother, Huang Taitai, was very controlling of her and was also very demanding. Lindo Jong was very unhappy in her current situation and contrived a plan to get out of her marriage. Once she is free form her marriage, she recalls that she can finally think for herself and make her own decisions. She acquired a sense of self after escaping her marriage. This quote is effective in portraying how Lindo Jong feels relieved that she can be free to think and act for herself. This theme of a sense of self and freedom is common to the novel Anthem by Ayn Rand. In this novel, the main character, Equality 7-2521 lives in a society where the government tries to control everyone and make it so every person was equal. In doing so, however, one had no sense of self, could not think his own thoughts, or even use the word "I".  At the end of  the novel, Equality develops an ego, or a sense of self, and realizes the importance of individuality, similar to Lindo Jong.

Chapter 2- The Joy Luck Club

Literary term- simile: "Auntie had a tongue like hungry scissors eating silk cloth." (44)


Quote- "As she rubbed this spot, I became very still. It was though she was rubbing the memory back into my skin." (46)

When An-mei was a young girl, she lived with her aunt, uncle, grandmother, and brother at her aunt and uncle's family home  in Ningpo.  Her mother left to be the concubine of a man named Wu-Tsing, consequently, An-Mei had lost all memory of her mother. When An-Mei was four, her mother arrived at An-Mei's aunt's home and begged to get An-Mei back. During her stay, a boiling pot of soup fell and spilled on An-Mei's neck, causing it to scar. An-Mei's grandmother and aunt chased her mother away after this incident. Her mother returned five years later because An-Mei's grandmother, Popo, had fallen deathly ill. While brushing her hair, An-Mei's mother began to rub the scar on An-Mei's neck. This causes all of An-Mei's memories of her mother to come back to her and she remembers that her mother had come back for her years before. From this night forward, An-Mei loves her mother once again. This quote sets up the relationship between An-Mei and her mother for the rest of the story. A movie that relates to this theme of memory is "The Notebook". Throughout the movie, Noah reads a story to his wife Allie, who is suffering from Alzheimer's. Allie doesn't know that the man reading her the story is her husband or that the story is actually her life. At the end of the movie Allie remembers that Noah is her husband and the story he tells her is of their life together. She recalls this memory after Noah finishes the story and they spend the night together. Both An-Mei and Allie recall memories from their past after the ones that they love spend time with them.

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.  ~ The Wonder Years

Chapter One- The Joy Luck Club

Literary Term- flashback: "I remember my mother telling me about the Hsu's trip to China three years ago." (35) 


Quote- "So we decided to hold parties and pretend each week had become the new year. Each week we could forget past wrongs done to us. We weren't allowed to think a bad thought. We feasted, we laughed, we played games, lost and won, we told the best stories. And each week, we could hope to be lucky. That hope was our only joy. And that's how we came to call our little parties Joy Luck." (25) 
Jing-mei, the main character, is the daughter of a Chinese immigrant to San Francisco. Her mother and three other women began the Joy Luck Club. In a time of oppression and warfare between China and Japan, these women met to bring feelings of hope and joy into a dark, painful period in their society. This quote effectively explains what the Joy Luck Club entailed and it's purpose. A similar situation in American history is relatable to this quote. Many Africans were enslaved in the American colonies throughout the eighteenth century. While these slaves were treated brutally and faced oppression and adversity, they found joy and hope through their cultural roots. They used music, dance, religion, and oral tradition to illustrate the resilience of the human spirit under bondage. They threw celebrations in slave quarters with song and dance. These parties and their strong  sense of community allowed them to experience hope and joy even under bondage. 

This eighteenth-century painting depicts a celebration in the slave quarters on a South Carolina plantation