Erica+Takahashi+JLC+Rough+draft


 * Pick at least one mo****ther-daughter pair, and examine to what degree each has fulfilled the American Dream. How does the importance and/or definition of the American Dream change between generations?**

Amy Tan’s book //The Joy Luck Club// begins with a vignette called “Feathers from a Thousand Li Away”, which expresses the ambition of a mother who emigrates to the United States for a better life. //“But over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch. Over there nobody will look down on her”(2).// She dreams and imagines about her daughter’s successful life, which she will be judged by her worth. However, reality was different for this mother-daughter pair, Suyuan and Jingmei (June) Woo. They go through a bumpy relationship caused by cultural and generation differences. Suyuan, who expects her daughter to be perfect, is unable to bond with Jingmei, who is sick of her mother’s high expectations. However, later on, they begin to understand each other. Suyuan’s background has contributed a lot in her point of view of American Dream. Suyuan emigrated from China to run away from Japan’s severe invasion in 1949. Her life was miserable because of the feeling that she has lost everything she had including her two babies left behind in China. Therefore, she depended everything in America: hopes, dreams, and opportunity. //“America was where all my mother’s hopes lay…There were so many things to get better”(II.4.3).// Joy Luck Club, where four Chinese women met once every week helped Suyuan to leave the past behind her, and be happy with feasts and mahjong helped Suyuan to overcome her depression. Because of her adversity she wanted her daughter, Jingmei Woo to have a perfect life. //“My mother believed that you could be anything you wanted in America”(II.4.1).// She believed that everything was possible in America. She forced Jingmei to learn things that Jingmei wasn’t happy doing. Her determination of making Jingmei became bigger day by day after Waverly’s endless championships in chess. Just like the duck that stretched its neck in hopes of becoming a goose, which actually became a swan, Suyuan wanted Jingmei to achieve //her// American Dream, which was not Jingmei’s. Since then, Suyuan’s happiness and American Dream became Jingmei. It was Jingmei’s success that made Suyuan smile, and it was Jingmei’s failure that made Suyuan upset. On the other hand, Jingmei was suffering under humiliation of her continuous failure and her mother’s disappointed face. It was too much for Jingmei to take. //“And after seeing my mother’s disappointed face once again, something inside of me began to die. I hated the tests, the raised hopes and the filed expectations”(II.4.17).// Before Suyuan even realizes, Suyuan’s hope became a burden on Jingmei. It was no longer an American Dream. As soon as Jingmei found out that she was the embodiment of her mother’s hope, she had more pressure one her, which soon led to resentment of her mother. //“Why don’t you like me the way I am! I’m not a genius! I can’t play the piano!”(II.4.32).// Her resentment toward her mother made Jingmei a rebel. She went against everything that Suyuan suggested. She sees her own reflection and discovers the angry and stubborn side. Jingmei, not knowing the deeper meaning of Suyuan, which was to make her life successful although it was what Suyuan thought, Jingmei sets up a defensive and aggressive position against her mother which ruined their relationship. //“I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I’m not”(134).// As time passed by Suyuan realizes that her dreams were not Jingmei’s dreams. At the crab dinner where all four mother-daughter pairs have attended, Waverly makes a comment that Jingmei is not sophisticated. Jingmei Woo, who is unable to say anything since she thinks what Waverly said is true because Jingmei dropped out of everything she has started. However, Suyuan indirectly took Jingmei’s side by telling Waverly that Jingmei is indeed not sophisticated. Here, Suyuan meant that she wanted Jingmei to do something that she really liked instead of //being sophisticated,// and going through the same process that others go through just because they are afraid to be different from ordinary people. Suyuan finally lets her daughter Jingmei go, and believes her. //“…can make (her) legs go the other way” (208).// Suyuan let Jingmei follow her own voice not other’s. Jingmei later on realizes that Suyuan’s high expectation was Suyuan’s love towards her. When she realized that fact, Suyuan was no longer by her side, but Jingmei was left with the pendant that her mother left her before she passed away. Although it took a while to understand each other, I have to say that both of them have achieved the American Dream. Jingmei, by being approved by her mother, and being able to do what she want, not what others want; and Suyuan, by admitting that Jingmei is not ordinary (in a good way), she was able to see Jingmei, her hope, happy, which made both Jingmei and Suyuan’s life happy. “//Together we look like our mother. Her same eyes, her same mouth, open in surprise to see, at last, her long-cherished wish” (IV 4. 146).// Jingmei Woo finally realized the deeper meaning of Suyuan’s high expectation. Jingmei was her everything; her hope and dream. Although it was too late when Jingmei realized Suyuan’s love toward her, this mother-daughter pair was able to understand and appreciate each other. At last, they both have achieved the real American Dream.