The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (1989) follows the stories of four Chinese women who immigrate to America and their American-born daughters. This was Tan’s first novel, a highly-acclaimed New York Times best-seller and winner of the 1989 California Book Award for Fiction. It was adapted into a film in 1993 and was the first wide American film release with a predominantly Asian American cast.

Plot Summary

The Joy Luck Club is divided into four parts, each containing four stories told in first-person point of view exploring the conflicts of four mother-daughter pairs. Each part begins with an allegorical story that distills the themes of the stories that follow. The mothers met in San Francisco’s Chinatown after World War II and formed a social club called the Joy Luck Club. Most of the novel takes place in the late 1980s with lengthy flashbacks to the mothers’ youths in war-torn China. 

At the beginning of the novel, Suyuan Woo, the founder of the Joy Luck Club, has recently died. Her daughter Jing-Mei is asked to take her mother’s place at the mahjong table with the An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair. Jing-Mei grew up knowing that her mother had lost two baby girls in China before she emigrated to America, but she doesn’t know the full story behind this tragedy. While playing mahjong, the Aunties tell Jing-Mei that the lost daughters have been found. They give her money to go to China to meet her sisters and tell them about their mother. Jing-Mei doubts that she knew her mother well enough to adequately tell her mother’s story. This sets up the major themes of the novel, as the mothers and daughters share stories highlighting their lack of mutual understanding due to language, cultural, and generational barriers.

An-Mei, Lindo, and Ying-ying recall their childhood and their relationships with their families, showing the traumas and hardship they endured before moving to America. The respect and reverence they show their families is, for them, a stark contrast to the lack of respect their own daughters have demonstrated. An-Mei’s mother was forced to become a rich man’s concubine and sacrificed her life to secure a better future for her daughter. Lindo endured an arranged marriage to protect her family’s honor. Ying-ying was temporarily separated from her wealthy family and felt a subsequent loss of identity.

The daughters Waverly, Jing-Mei, Lena, and Rose describe how their relationships with their mothers were challenging in their own childhoods. For Waverly and Jing-Mei, their mothers’ demanding, critical expectations interfered with their personal development. Lena and Rose suffered because of their families’ trauma and their mothers’ mental anguish. All of the daughters’ stories highlight barriers to true, deep communication with their mothers.

The third section of the novel again focuses on the daughters’ stories, as they struggle with personal relationships. Lena is unhappy in her marriage, but cannot speak up for herself to her husband. Waverly plans to remarry, but can’t bring herself to tell her mother for fear of disapproval. Rose’s marriage is in trouble, but she feels paralyzed to do anything about it. Jing-Mei feels humiliated because she has not achieved as much in life as she had hoped.

In the final section of the novel, the mothers and daughters experience greater understanding and appreciation of one another. This culminates in Jing-Mei’s trip to China, where she finally understands the sacrifice her mother made when she abandoned her babies ls in the hope they would be saved from death. Jing-Mei meets her sisters and discovers the bond with her mother that she has been searching for.