FREE ESSAY ON JOY LUCK CLUB

JOY LUCK CLUB

The Joy Luck Club contains sixteen interlocking stories about Chinese immigrant mothers
and their American born and raised daughters. The book opens with a parable about a woman
with a duck that changes itself into a swan, and when she wants to take it with her to
America, the immigration officials wouldn't allow her on the boat with it. She took one
feather off of the swan and carried it with her. This feather is carried with her
throughout her life and is given to her daughter in the end. The parable is followed by
four sections which reveal a part of a story about a Chinese mother and her Americanized
daughter. The women are bound together by their tales of struggles that they have
suffered during the time in which they lived in China, their native homeland.