Essay on Clash of Cultures Portrayed in Amy Tans The Joy...

Clash of Cultures Portrayed in The Joy Luck Club The environment in which one grows up molds their character and behavior. The four daughters portrayed in The Joy Luck Club are of Chinese descent, yet they are not Chinese. The daughters speak in English, not the language of their mothers, Mandarin. The daughters are addressed by their English names, or they do not have a Chinese name at all. They think as Americans and have little memory of their Chinese thinking, customs or traditions. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have bought to America. They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Fractured English. They see that joy and†¦show more content†¦However, June, in the end, chose to disobey her mother, talked back to her, even shouted at her, I wish I wasnt your daughter. I wish you werent my mother. Then I wish Id never been born! I wish I were dead! Like them.. this is not the act of a Chinese daughter, a Chinese daughter can never talk back. When Lindo showed Waverly off, she was proud of her daughter for winning the chess competitions and being a chess champion, yet Waverly take it that her mother is a show-off, I wish you wouldnt do that, telling everyone that Im your daughter. In the Chinese way of thinking, a Chinese daughter would want her mother to be proud of her and would strive her best to achieve it. Waverly dared to scold her mother, Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, why dont you learn to play chess and ran away from home. If a Chinese daughter ran away from home, it meant that the family will disown her, treat her as an outcaste, never accepting her and never allowed to come back. Yet, Waverly took the American way of rebelling against her mother, not only running away, but plot herself against her own mother later and pondered my next move. In The Voice From The Wall told by Lena St Clair, she has been using her American mind, asking what exactly happened to the beggar who was sentenced to die the death of a thousand cuts. When asked, her motherShow MoreRelatedAmericanization in The Joy Luck Club Essay1963 Words   |  8 PagesAmericanization in The Joy Luck Club Oftentimes the children of immigrants to the United States lose the sense of cultural background in which their parents had tried so desperately to instill within them. According to Walter Shear, â€Å"It is an unseen terror that runs through both the distinct social spectrum experienced by the mothers in China and the lack of such social definition in the daughters’ lives.† This â€Å"unseen terror† is portrayed in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club as four Chinese