Sooyoung+Hwang+Essay+Rough+Draft

To many people in the word, the word “mother” makes their heart warm. Usually, when babies learn, they try to imitate their mother. This habit of imitating goes until when the baby becomes a child, or a teenager. Especially, to daughters, mothers are the mentor and the role model for the future. Since mother is more experienced in life, her advices can be very helpful. This is why mother and daughter are in inseparable relationship. However, in the novel, __The Joy Luck Club__, written by Amy Tan, girls, Jing-mei, Rose, Waverly, and Lena desires to be the exact opposite of their mothers. In reality, the daughters are almost exactly alike with their mothers as if the daughters are the “American Translation” of their mother. In the novel, Waverly Jong, who does not understand her mother and who always disagrees with her mother, becomes just like her mother, Lindo as the story progresses. Lindo Jong is very strategic and competitive woman, who was grown in China, moved to San Francisco after her first marriage was annulled. When she was young, she obeyed her parents without any question. When she had to marry her first husband, Tyan-yu, she was treated very harshly. This made her to become very strategic because she planned a trick to get released from the marriage. “I thought about my plan for many days. I observed everyone around me, the thoughts they showed in their faces, and then I was ready.” (59) This quote shows how she had strategically observed everyone and every move so that she can escape from the marriage without dishonoring her parents. Also, according to Waverly, Lindo’s daughter, Lindo has two kinds of faces. She said that her mother has an ability to change to “Chinese Face” and “American Face”. This also shows how she is very strategic because she uses different faces for different purpose. “I envied this girl, the way she could walk out the door. Sometimes as I watched her from my window, I would imagine I was that girl, standing in the courtyard, bargaining with the traveling shoe mender, gossiping with other servant girls, scolding a handsome delivery man in her high teasing voice.” (50) This quote shows how she is also very competitive. She envies this girl because she can do things that Lindo can’t. In this situation, Lindo feels competitive to her because she wants to be like her. Also, when Lindo brought Waverly to the public markets show how Lindo is very competitive because in the Joy Luck Club, there are three other girls other than Waverly. Lindo wanted to tell people how she is the mother of Waverly, a chess prodigy. Waverly Jong is a girl who wish to be opposite as her mother. Since she is child prodigy, she achieved everything she wanted, she could even play the “chess”. She was really embarrassed about Lindo when Lindo brought her to the market and say “This my daughter Wave-ly Jong.” (101) “I wish you wouldn’t do that, telling everybody I’m your daughter” (101) said by Waverly, shows how she does not become just like her mother because she does not understand why her mom is bragging about her. “In my head, I saw a chessboard with sixty-four black and white squares. Opposite me was my opponent, two angry black slits… I closed my eyes and pondered my next move.” (103) Shows how Waverly is very strategic just like her mother. Since she was so embarrassed and angry with her mom, she put her mom as the opponent and she planed to do the next move. “After much thought, I came up with a brilliant plan. I concocted a way for Rich to meet my mother and win her over.” (194) also shows her strategic abilities because Rich is used to American cultures but her mom, Lindo is used to Chinese culture. This is why Lindo does not like Rich because she cannot understand his culture. Waverly uses her head to arrange the meeting between her mom and Rich to get used to each other and understand each other so she can get married. Waverly and Lindo seems to be different because they are from two totally different cultures and customs. They were raised in totally different conditions. This is the reason why they don’t understand each other. However, this only lasted short. As Waverly became older and older, she grew more like her mother.  