Essay on Mother as Villain and Victim in Amy Tans The...

Mother as Villain and Victim in Joy Luck Club In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan focuses on several mother-daughter relationships. One of the relationships explored is that between an immigrant Chinese mother and her American born daughter Jing-mei. The mother expects Jing-mei to be a prodigy child - while pursuing this dream she unintentionally creates a serious conflict between her and her daughter. To fulfill her unrealistic expectations, the mother pushes Jing-mei to be the best in anything and everything. At first, the reader may perceive the mother as the villain in the story; however, the mother just wants her daughter to have the life that she never had. Jing-mei does not understand her intentions.†¦show more content†¦She became impatient when she could not become perfect fast enough. She soon realized that she had another prodigy side to her, a side she had never known before. She looked in the mirror and The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful. She and I were the same. I had new thoughts, willful thoughts-or rather, thoughts filled with lots of wonts. I wont let her change me, I promised myself. I wont be what Im not (Tan 1209). From then on she resisted her mother and denied herself the chance to become anything she wanted, or at least anything her mother wanted. As time went on, her mother seemed to give up hope until one day she decided that her daughter should start piano lessons. Every day Jing-mei was sent to piano lessons and every day she grew more and more determined not to be a good piano player. She did not want to give her mother the satisfaction of her doing well so she played any way she wanted. When it was time for the recital, She started to believe that a prodigy side of her really did exist (Souris 92). The recital was filled with errors and after that Jing-meis attitude became worse. Jing-mei thought that her mother would have forgotten about the piano lessons, but two days after the recital her mother told her it was time for piano lessons as though nothing had happened. She finally took a stand and resisted her mothers commands. She expressed to her mother that she could never be the daughter that