Characters | the-joy-luck-club

Meet the Characters

There are a few major characters. They all contain their own invididual characteristics, but play an important role when they are together. Why these characters so important in the development of this novel.

The Joy Luck Club (from left to right) : Suyuan Woo, Jing-mei (June) Woo, Waverly Jong, Lindo Jong, Ying-ying St. Clair, Lena St. Clair, An-mei Hsu, and Rose Hsu Jordan.

About the Character:

Suyuan Woo:

Strong and willful woman who refuses to focus on her hardships.
Struggles to create happiness and success where she finds it lacking.
Founded the original Joy Luck Club while awaiting the Japanese invasion of China in Kweilin.
Her sense of the power of will can at times cause problems,
Virtue of Suyuan’s will that she eventually locates her long-lost twin daughters in China.
Shares many characteristics with her fellow mothers in the Joy Luck Club: fierce love for her daughter, often expressed as criticism.

Jing-mei (June) Woo:

Her narratives serve as bridges between the two generations of storytellers, as Jing-mei speaks both for herself and for her recently deceased mother,
Bridges America and China. When she travels to China, she discovers the Chinese essence within herself, thus realizing a deep connection to her mother that she had always ignored
Her fears echo those of her peers, the other daughters of the Joy Luck Club members. They have always identified with Americans, but are beginning to regret having neglected their Chinese heritage.
Her fears also speak to a reciprocal fear shared by the mothers, who wonder whether, by giving their daughters American opportunities and self-sufficiency, they have alienated them from their Chinese heritage.
Believes that her mother’s constant criticism bespeaks a lack of affection, when in fact her mother’s severity and high expectations are expressions of love and faith in her daughter.

Lindo Jong:

Learns from an early age the powers of “invisible strength”—of hiding one’s thoughts until the time is ripe to reveal them, and of believing in one’s inner force even when one finds oneself at a disadvantage.
Discovers these values while in China, caught in a loveless marriage and oppressed by the tyranny of her mother-in-law.
Teaches these skills of invisible strength—for which she uses the wind as a metaphor—to her daughter Waverly.
Her lessons nurture Waverly’s skill at chess, but Waverly comes to resent her mother’s control and seeming claims of ownership over her successes.
Experiences the largest crisis of cultural identity of any of the characters.
Regrets having wanted to give Waverly both American circumstances and a Chinese character, stating that the two can never successfully combine.

Waverly Jong:

Inherits her “invisible strength”—her ability to conceal her thoughts and strategize.
Imagines her struggles with her mother as a tournament.
Her focus on invisible strength also contributes to a sense of competitiveness.
She is not entirely self-centered: she loves her daughter, Shoshana, unconditionally.
Fears her mother’s criticism of her fiancé, Rich.
Tends to project her fears and dislikes onto her mother.

Ying-ying St. Clair:

Born in the year of the Tiger, a creature of force and stealth.
When her nursemaid tells her that girls should be meek and passive, shebegins to lose her sense of autonomous will.
At an early age Ying-ying’s profound belief in fate and her personal destiny led to a policy of passivity and even listlessness.
She always listened to omens and signs, she never paid attention to her inner feelings.
Believed that she was “destined” to marry a vulgar family friend, she did nothing to seriously prevent the marriage, and even came to love her husband, as if against her will..
Allowed the American Clifford St. Clair to marry her because she sensed that he was her destiny as well.
Realized that she has passed on her passivity and fatalism to her daughter, does she take any initiative to change.
Finds a sort of positive counterpart to her earlier, debilitating superstitions and fatalism,

Lena St. Clair:

Caught in an unhappy marriage to Harold Livotny.
Inherited her mother Ying-ying’s belief in superstition and deems herself incapable of reversing what is “fated” to happen.
Fails to take initiative to change her relationship, despite her recognition of its dysfunctional elements.
While still a child, Lena learns an important lesson from her neighbors.
Realizes the importance of expressing one’s feelings, even at the cost of peace and harmony.

An-Mei Hsu:

At an early age, An-mei Hsu learns lessons in stoic and severe love from her grandmother, Popo, and from her mother.
Her mother also teaches her to swallow her tears, to conceal her pain, and to distrust others.
Later learns to speak up and assert herself, she fears that she has handed down a certain passivity to her daughter Rose.
An-mei sees “fate” as what one is “destined” to struggle toward achieving.
When her youngest child Bing dies, An-mei ceases to express any outward faith in God, but retains her belief in the force of will.

Rose Hsu Jordan:

Finds herself unable to assert her opinion, to stand up for herself, or to make decisions.
Displayed a certain strength, illustrated by her insistence on marrying her husband, Ted, despite her mother’s objections and her mother-in-law’s poorly concealed racism,
Allowed herself to become the “victim” to Ted’s “hero,” letting him make all of the decisions in their life together.
Needs her mother’s intervention in order to realize that to refuse to make decisions is in fact itself a decision: a decision to continue in a state of subservience, inferiority, and ultimate unhappiness.

Character Response

Using one of the mother and daughter pair described above, write a paragraph responding to the following prompt:

Do you believe that the pair you have chosen contain any symbolic connection in their lives? That is, do you believe the mother and daughter have symbols hidden in their stories that intertwine? If so, in what ways? If not, why not? Use textual evidence to defend your position.