Cultural Translation
Jillian Deaver
Favorite Parable
My favorite parable was "The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates" because I felt like I could relate the most to this passage. Sometimes I think that I know what is right for me even when my parents tell me otherwise and the majority of the time they are right. The girl displays her arrogance for her mother, '"You can't tell me because you don't know! You don't know anything!"' (Tan 87). This main idea of this parable is to show how our elders have more knowledge and experience and younger generations should take their advice.
Other Mother and Daughter Pair
If I were to read another mother and daughter in the novel it would be Suyuan and Jing-mei "June" Woo. I think the first section for the Woos about how The Joy Luck Club was started would be interesting to read and give me a better understanding of all of the other stories. Also, I want to know more about the mother that died and how her daughter feels about that situation. I think it would be really hard to lose your mother but I don't know, maybe she wasn't that close with her mother or she died when the daughter was very young.
Quotation
"This is how a daughter honors her mother. It is shot so deep it is in your bones. The pain of the flesh is nothing. The pain you must forget. Because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones. You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother before her. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh" (Tan 48).
This quote is so inspiring because it shows the intensity of how much a daughter loves her mother. While having somewhat of a dark mood, this quote is actually very positive. The scene before this quote (when An-mei's mother cut part of her flesh off for her own mother) was intense and this quote pulled the whole story together, making her actions make more sense.
Thematic Paragraph
In "The Joy Luck Club", Amy Tan presents the idea that generational disconnect is evident between mothers and daughters even though they only want what's best for each other. Throughout the stories, Rose's marriage is crumbling beneath her. An-mei (her mother) pushes Rose to fix her marriage because she thinks this is what is going to make her happy even though Rose has already given up on it. The pressure from her mother causes Rose a lot of stress and there is a time where she just stays in bed for two whole days because she doesn't know what to do about the situation. An-mei explains to Rose, "'You must think of yourself, what you must do. If someone tells you, then you are not trying"' (Tan 130). An-mei only wants Rose to be happy again and that is why she is pushing Rose so hard to save her marriage. Their insight majorly differs in a sense that Rose has already made up her mind and doesn't want to save her marriage. The generational disconnect is shown in this relationship.