Mother Daughter Relationships in The Joy Luck Club
"Mother –Daughter Relationships in The Joy Luck Club" As our world continues to change, relationships between people have evolved considerably; but one has remained unchanged. It has been recognized that "no relationship is quite as primal as the one between a mother and a daughter."(Shaw, 2003) In the novel The Joy Luck Club, one theme comes through repeatedly, that a mother/daughter relationship strongly determines both women’s identities, but more so the daughter ‘s. In the sixteen stories shared by eight Chinese women (four mothers and four daughters), it is clear the kind of relationship each pair of women share with each other, and it is even clearer how these relationships have determined each of the daughters’ self confidence and more importantly their identity or lack there of. There are three main parts in which The Joy Luck Club illustrates the mother-daughter relationship and its effects: communication between the mother and daughter, acceptance of the daughter as an adult/independent, and the daughter’s lost identity due to the mother’s lack of identity. Perhaps the strongest evidence of the correspondence between identity of daughter formed by the mother is the lost identities of the mothers in The Joy Luck Club and the daughters’ memories of dealing with no identity to grow from. The Joy Luck Club shows us through a series of heart-felt stories that the connection between mother and daughter is important beyond any other relationship in a woman’s quest for identity. The communication or lack there of between mothers and daughters of The Joy Luck Club is key to understanding how each relationship has disintegrated. Communication problems are a common part of mother-daughter relationships and the description of these problems matches the communication of these women perfectly. "They can’t hear each other, the daughter will hear the mother say something and she’ll think ‘she wants to control me’, and the mother is saying something completely controlling but it is not meant to be. Meanwhile when the daughter speaks the mother hears nothing but anger in a comment that conveys anger but also ’I love you, and can’t we do this differently?