Book Review of The Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club
The Joy Luck Club is a novel which written by Amy Tan. It was published in 1989. Amy Tan was born in the US to immigrant parents from China. She has been received various awards. Joy Luck Club is her best work, it has been translated into 35 languages. This work also inspired by by Tan’s history of life. Her mother was forced to move to America because of her marriage with American. The relationship between mothers – daughters and multiculture are the soul of this story.
The title of this The Joy Luck Club it self, taken from name a club, where Chinesse played mahjong ( chinesse traditional games). This club is in America. There are 4 mothers (Suyuan woo, An – mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, Ying Ying St. Clair ) and 4 daughters( Jing – mei woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, Waverly Jong, and Lena St. Clair ) in this book. Actually, each chapter of this book was written by different writer. But they have same orientation. The mothers came from China, they moved to America and hoped that their daughters would get better life there. The mothers came from China and they had grown in Chinese culture. The daughters came from chinese descendant but they grew up with American culture. On the other hand, American culture has very big differences with Chinese culture. For example, Americans are so individualist while Chinese are co communal, then Chinese do believed with superstitious, while Americans believe that everything based on logic and could be explained scientifically. Most of Americans think democratically, while most of Chinese was of thinking are structured by their ancestors.
Those differences appear in this story as a conflict. Of course, the conflict happened between mother and daughter, because this book focused on the relationship between them. For example,the daughters who were expected to be quite and ‘dark’ not expressing their own opinions ( chinese culture ) but they grew up in a society that pushed them to be brave and democratic ( American culture ).
Mothers wanted daughters to understand the importance of her chinesse identity but at the same time she wanted he daughter to be American privilege, this thing became a very big job for the daughters and made a conflict on them self.
The multiculture in this book creates tension between the generations, because neither can understand the other completely. Although there are so many problems and tension in this book, the author still give emphasize of mother and daughter relationship. They can’t be separated above the problems, because mothers and daughters need one another to find the light on their life.

Research

I am planning to do a research about Marxism literary theory Implementation in T.S. Elliot, "Eeldrop and Appleplex".

I intend to find the dialectics of base structure and super structure in this story as it is mentioned as well in the beginning of the story itself. I would like to analayse the implementation through the characterization of the characters in the story.

Plan of Research

Title : The Old Man and The Sea

Author : Ernest Hemingway (1952)

First of all I want to be honest, from my side this story is a bit hyperbola in telling a simple story about fisherman who had a big passion to catch Merlin, a big fish on Gulf Stream. Soon I realize that the story had drive me into a deep of curious feeling. From the way the author picture the character of the fisherman, and the way he delivered the characters thoughts, it is interesting. I found many of sentences from the story contains lots of explicit and implicit meanings. Therefore I want to analyze this story with pragmatic theory, focuses on the implicit and explicit sentences.

Research Plans

1. Title : The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Author : John Boyne

2. Title : The Storm

Author : Kate Chopin

For this research, I plan to write about The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne again or probably I will change it with the short story titled The Storm by Kate Chopin. Talking about the theories, I still confuse in deciding which the theories I will use. I still need my friend’s help and of course your advice. But, for The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, probably I will talk about the symbolism. About The Storm, I also will talk about the symbols or the characters.

A Brave And Honest Boy, Oliver Twist

Title : A Brave And Honest Boy, Oliver Twist (short story)
Author: Charles Dickens
Link : http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/47609/

I found this short story and I think this is good that there is Oliver twist short story. I read this book but not the entire of the story and I found the two different classes in this book so I choose Marxism theory to support my research but maybe when I already read the entire story I will have another theory.

Research

Title : A Walk in a Workhouse
Author: Charles Dickens


I will try to analyze this short story with Marxism theory, but it is possible I can find another theory in this short story.

I have just read it in general, and I conclude that it is about people who live in low class society in Victorian era, so that i use this theory.

Research

ooops i did mistake on my post before,so sorry miss i though only post the title,so i post it again

WAS IT A DREAM?

by: Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893)

The following short story is reprinted from A Selection from the Writings of Guy de Maupassant. Guy de Maupassant. New York: The Review of Reviews Co., 1903.

this short story from Guy de Maupassant tell about the story of life which the author ask the question about his life either is dream or not,such love story for me but i will read and analyze again..

the theory i will use is Romanticism,describe how the author's imagine in this short story.But it is possible if i read it again i will find another theory instead Romanticism