Essay Example on The novel the Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

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The novel the Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan is a beautiful portrayal of the deep and complicated relationships between four Chinese mothers and their four American daughters The power of the came from the countless themes and symbols that were prevalent throughout the book unfortunately many of these were not adequately explained in the movie While the movie did leave some important parts of the plot it did also add some information There were many similarities and differences between the book and movie of Joy Luck Club There were certain things that were missing in the movie For instances some chapters were not even mentioned in the movie The chapter The Moon Lady is nowhere to be found in the movie Moon Lady explains when Ying Ying found her identity after a brief encounter with the Moon Lady who turned out to be a man This made the character of Ying Ying feel flat in the movie because the reader was not able to understand what made her feel so lost all these years In fact it felt like the Saint Claire family was not really focused on because the chapter Voice in the Wall was also left out This chapter not only developed Lena and Ying Ying s relationship but it showed the isolated upbringing of Lena and how that influenced who she later became Thirdly it is not mentioned in the movie that a peasant family took in the Suyuan twin babies this is mentioned in the book Another detail that the movie does not even show is how Lindo worked in a fortune cookie shop with Ane mei The movie also left out Rose's bother 



Bing who drowned at the beach on her watch This explained why Rose could never make any decisions which eventually led to the collapse of her marriage It also showed the deep love of a mother when An mei sacrificed her prized jewel in hopes of rescuing her son While many of these many seem like small details the contributed to the development of characters which was important in the many themes prevalent throughout the novel The book has many stories of Chinese beliefs which illustrate the reasoning of the Chinese mothers thinking in regard to their American daughters Many of these stories such as the girl who didn t listen to her mother and ran into the street or the girl or was greedy and ate too much watermelon These stories help the reader to understand the upbringing of their mothers which influenced their beliefs The mothers fear that they have not instilled enough Chinese courage in their daughters and have not taught them all the lessons that they have learned For this reason the movie could not even begin to develop the conflict between mother and daughter Take Jing mei for example in the movie you simply see her fail at playing the piano In the book it is explained that Suyuan wanted what was best for her but Jing mei only understood this when it was too late

The movie really fell short by not including the most important aspect of the book the relationship between the mothers and daughters Lastly there were parts in the book that the movie changed In the book Ying Ying aborts her son after the sadness of her husband leaving her for an opera singer and never came back The movie portrays her husband as a truly cruel man who drives Ying Ying to drown her son not abort an unborn baby I actually believe that this shows the strong hatred she felt towards her husband Another huge change in the movie was that Rose had a daughter with Ted This was not even mentioned in the book and felt like a huge change to the plot Not only that but in the movie Ted was a journalist while in the book he was a dermatologist Although these felt like small changes it actually made me like Rose more because it did not portray her as hopeless but as someone who was constantly fighting to save her marriage 



An advantage of the movie was the movie allows the story to flow in a less confusing way I really loved how the story kept coming back to the joy luck club even if that part was inaccurate and the stories were all different The book makes it difficult to distinguish different characters while the film makes it easier to remember each character and connects each mother to her daughter While I definitely enjoyed the movie I found that it just could not compete with deep meanings and lessons that were interwoven into the novel The first person point of view in the novel conveyed the deep feelings of the characters to the reader something which no movie can do In contrast the movie is made for entertainment so there was no need to include many important scenes For instance the movie does not include the importance of the red candle which played a very important role in Lindo s story The red candle represented her doomed marriage By not including this it becomes unclear to why Lindo must come up with a plan to escape her first husband However when one reads this novel they will understand the reasoning of Lindo s desperate situation Therefore I believe that by not including this story I believe that the movie has lost an important part of the novel In conclusion I believe due to the fact the movie left out so much the movie just cannot compete with the novel the Joy Luck Club


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