How Did Ying Ying's Baby Die in the Joy Luck Club Novel

The Joy Luck Club is an 1989 novel by Amy Tan.

The book centers around iv mother-daughter pairs living in San Francisco. The mothers are Suyuan Woo, An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair. The daughters are, respectively, Jing-Mei (June) Woo, Rose Hsu Hashemite kingdom of jordan, Waverly Jong, and Lena St. Clair. All of the mothers immigrated from Prc during their lives, and much of the volume talks about their relationships with their mothers, with the exception of Suyuan Woo. The book is structured in xvi chapters, each narrated in beginning person by i of the characters; the beginning 4 are told by the mothers, the next 8 are told by the daughters, and the last four are told past the mothers, all with the exception of Suyuan Woo, who is expressionless at the beginning of the novel, so Jing-Mei takes her chapters. Almost of each chapter is dedicated to a flashback of the narrator's childhood, usually regarding a particular incident or serial of events involving that grapheme's mother.

The novel was adjusted into a 1993 film, directed past Wayne Wang. It starred Ming-Na Wen, Tamlyn Tomita, Lauren Tom, and Rosalind Chao as the daughters, and Lisa Lu, Tsai Mentum, Kieu Chinh, and France Nguyen as the mothers.

In 2020, the 1993 film adaptation got inducted into National Film Registry preservation list past the Library of Congress.

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Film and volume The Joy Luck Society provide examples of:

• Abusive Parents:
  • Abusive aunt and uncle in immature An-Mei'south example.
  • Lena thinks she encounters one in the apartment next to her as a kid, but it turns out the mother and girl are merely playing.
  • In Lindo's case, a forceful abusive female parent-in-police force puts a lot of pressure level on her son and Lindo to conceive a child.
• Accommodation Distillation: The picture show kept about of the stories (with some changes), but trimmed some parts.
• Adaptation Expansion: Some parts were added to the moving-picture show.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Ted in the film is depicted as redeemable, thus being attentive enough to relieve his marriage with Rose. Harold is a more than blatant emotional abuser in the film, whereas the volume counterpart is just casually selfish and unintentionally cavalier.
• Adult Fright:
  • Being forced to carelessness your baby girls to the elements in the desperate hope someone volition find and take care of them because you simply can't carry them anymore.
  • Waverly running abroad from her mother in a busy street as a child.
  • 4-twelvemonth-old Bing'south expiry. While at the beach, he is left unattended for a moment and ends upward accidentally drowning.
  • Having to brand a deal that when your iv-yr-old child turns 15, she will leave and ally a Spoiled Brat, and you will never run across her again.
• All for Nothing: Suyuan is forced to carelessness her twin babe girls past the side of the road and so she could keep fleeing the Japanese. She wound upward collapsing from exhaustion less than a mile downwardly the road, and was rescued past a truck picking up refugees while passed out. For the rest of her life, she lamented that if she had just held onto them a little longer, they all could accept been saved without being separated.
• Ambiguous State of affairs: In the volume, the state of Lena'south relationship with Harold is upwardly in the air. Also, while it hints that Rose volition get the upper-hand in her divorce with Ted, Rose'due south arc ends abstractly enough. The film avoids these by showing in the nowadays day Lena is with a new man she'due south visibly happier with and Ted, who was written as less of a jerk, was able to reconcile with Rose.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Lena goes through the motions of her wedlock, splitting all the costs with her husband "equally" despite him making seven times what she does. When her mother asks why they practice this, she tries to think of a way to explicate it in a manner for her mother to understand, but to surrender and realize she doesn't know.
• Bundled Matrimony: Lindo's start matrimony, to a Spoiled Brat.
• Creative License – Biology: (In-Universe) Lindo'due south mother in law cannot understand why her son hasn't sired whatsoever children yet. It's because he hasn't hit puberty; in other words, he's physically too immature to be a father.
• Artistic License – Music: At the end of the section Two Kinds, she mentions playing two songs from Robert Schumann'due south Scenes from Childhood, Pleading Child and Perfectly Contented, thereafter realizing that the two songs are actually ii halves of the same song. The two songs, actually known as Bittendes Kind and Glückes genug, are actually separate songs from the same volume, Kinderszenen, only that they are beside each other. At least the High german names were translated into the English language names properly.
• Babies Make Everything Better: Rose in the movie admits she got significant "for the worst reason" in order to go along Ted from straying. It doesn't work, though they both exercise love their daughter.
• Baby Mill: An-Mei's female parent fills this function in her loveless union. Information technology'southward revealed that 2nd Wife bundled her rape then she could laissez passer off the ensuing son every bit her own.
• Bait-and-Switch: Ying-Ying's first adult book entry hints that she was kidnapped and forcibly impregnated every bit a young girl, since Lena's father claims that he saved her from "a fate as well horrible to talk most" in Mainland china, and Ying-Ying absent-mindedly babbles to her immature daughter that she fears she might become kidnapped and forced to have a baby by strange men. Her second entry disproves this: She willingly married a friend of her rich father's, but he turned out to be a crass philanderer who abandoned her a few months after their marriage, and she hated him so much that she aborted his child out of spite.
• Bald of Evil: Lena's swain Harold's baldness is a visual cue to his common cold soullessness, along with the grey wear and article of furniture. His replacement in the pic version is notable for having thick, luxurious hair, symbolic of his warmth and goodness.
• Batman Gambit: Lindo'southward plan of getting out of her first marriage.
• Be Conscientious What You Wish For: Rose's married man Ted gets this twofold.
  • It's implied he was fatigued to her due to her submissiveness, and his ability to push her around. After his outset malpractice lawsuit, he got fed up with her inability to make whatsoever decisions, without acknowledging that part of the reason she'southward such an Extreme Chump is because of him.
  • After endlessly browbeating her to brand a decision while married, this comes dorsum to bite him when she decides to reject his pitiful divorce terms and fight to keep the house.
• Break the Cutie: Varying cases betwixt this and Intermission the Haughty through all of the characters.
• Breather Episode: Later on the heartbreaking story of An-Mei's new family unit in "Magpies" and Ying-Ying'south rather troubling immature adulthood in "Waiting Between The Trees" and before Jing-mei's trip to Prc in "A Pair of Tickets," "Double Confront" is a lighthearted and rather humorous tale detailing how Lindo and Can met and overcame a linguistic communication barrier to fall in love and get married then they could have a child and become citizens.
• Broken Bird: Young An-Mei, and Lena's female parent Ying-ying.
• Cheerful Child: 4-year-old Ying-Ying in "The Moon Lady."
• Kid past Rape: The flick accommodation directly indicates An-Mei's half-brother is a product of this.
• Culture Clash: When Lindo brings her American fiance over for dinner, he horrifies her parents past unknowingly committing every Chinese civilisation fake pas during the meal.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Most of the mothers.
• Darker and Edgier: Arguably, the fate of Ying-Ying's showtime baby in the film. In the book, Ying-Ying gets an ballgame. In the movie, Ying-Ying carries information technology to term only later drowns it, interim listless the whole time.
• Death of a Child: Four-year-onetime Bing Hsu (drowned) and Ying-Ying'south sons (the kickoff ane was aborted considering it belonged to her awful first husband and the 2nd one was born with a hole in its head and no brain).
• Defiled Forever: An-mei'due south widowed mother is raped by a strange man, and is and then forced to marry him because she is considered defiled. Even worse, the Second Wife spreads a rumor that the intercourse was consensual.
• Destructive Romance: Rose comes to realize that she's living in one.
• Domestic Abuse: Lena's married man is of the fiscal abuse variety. Ted grows into an emotional abuser to Rose.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Poor Ying-ying.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • 2nd Wife fakes these constantly to proceeds the favor of her superstitious hubby.
  • An-Mei's female parent. Well... information technology's a long story.
• The '80s: The novel's set time.
• Establishing Grapheme Moment: In the book, the first sign that Ted is a terrible person is when Rose tells him well-nigh his female parent'due south racist statements and he's angrier at Rose for not standing up for herself than at his mother's racism. Notably, due to his nicer and redeemable portrayal in the film, he is present when said racism is directed at Rose, and he rightfully calls his female parent out and he and Rose are eventually able to reconcile their marriage.
• Evil Matriarch: Huang Taitai in "The Red Candle" is pushy and demanding toward non only a young Lindo but her own son in an effort to gain a coveted grandson despite them beingness too young to have children, peculiarly Tyan-yu. Second Wife in "Magpies" makes her wait like a saint in comparison with her manipulative behavior and bouts of pretend suicide to get what she wants and making sure no i else tin can get the benefits that she does. Both of them do get humbled in their own ways past the end of each story.
• Extreme Doormat: Tan makes it pretty clear just how terrible the consequences can be if a woman acts as such and the book is quite disquisitional of a culture that encourages such.
• Fiscal Abuse: Lena's husband Harold does this to her. Despite making seven times her salary, he makes her carve up all the costs "fifty-l" and acts as if information technology'southward off-white. He also gets rich off her ideas for his company without giving her payment or credit. It takes her female parent questioning why she has to pay for water ice cream that she doesn't eat for her to realize this.
• Flashback: All the mother and daughter stories up to the present.
• Jade-Colored Glasses: Equally an adult, Waverly blames her mother Lindo for making her view her life this mode. She laments that she realized her outset husband'south faults after her mother met him, and ever views her business firm, dress, and life in a more negative light subsequently her female parent comments on them. Information technology takes her finally confronting her female parent to learn that Lindo never intended to make her feel bad about herself or her life — that it was Waverly projecting her insecurities onto her female parent.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Rose's hubby Ted is a bullying wiggle in the volume, though he does have a betoken that Rose is likewise much of an Extreme Doormat who should learn to make decisions for herself.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: This is more emphasized in the film version with Waverly. In the book, although she outgrows her petty rivalry with June in adulthood, she does compliment June for her writing work merely tries to explicate to her what didn't work out about it and unintentionally opens June's emotional wounds (due to this scene being told in June's signal-of-view, Waverly is never aware of this). In the moving-picture show version, the same scene happens, only the framing device shows that June and Waverly are on better terms and Waverly sincerely wishes June well in meeting her long-lost family.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Rose grows to realize that Ted is cocky-centered, often blames the burden of his issues on her, and ultimately tries to boot her out of her house, expecting her to react well to the news of his cheating and divorce.
• Similar Brother and Sister: The extent of Lindo'south relationship with her first husband.
• Love Martyr: Rose believes that her submissiveness respects her hubby Ted. Of grade, she outgrows this mindset.
• Manipulative Bitch:
  • Waverly spends well-nigh of her life thinking of her mother Lindo as this, due to the latter telling her the story of how she tricked her way out of her atrocious kickoff union in "Red Candle," and teaching her how to play chess. Waverly imagines her mother as this cunning, manipulative woman who deliberately makes passive-aggressive comments to try to shatter her confidence and ruin her life. It takes until almost the stop of the volume for Waverly to realize that her mom never had whatever of the sinister motivations she imposed on her — she simply has no filter.
  • 2d Wife in An-Mei's mother's story, in spades. She got Outset Wife addicted to opium to go on her docile and compliant, and arranged his spousal relationship to 3rd Wife in the hopes of passing off their eventual son as her own, knowing the girl's poverty ensured she'd be besides grateful to cross Second Married woman and homeliness ensured Wu-Tsing would never favor her. When Third Wife also but had daughters, 2nd Wife befriended An-Mei's widowed mother to arrange her violent rape and wedlock to Wu-Tsing to pass off the ensuing son every bit her own. On summit of this, Second Wife constantly fakes being Driven to Suicide in order to scare Wu-Tsing into giving her her way all the fourth dimension.
• Meaningful Name: Loads. "Rose," in reference to her demureness in her marriage. And Lindo'south intentionally invokes this with "Waverly."
  • Lindo does it with all three of her children. Her first child, a son, is named Winston because it sounds like "wins ton" and he helped go Lindo and Tin their citizenship (though he dies at sixteen in a car accident). Her second son is named Vincent because information technology sounds like "win cent" and sons were considered quite prosperous. Waverly'due south total proper noun is Waverly Identify Jong later the street they were living on at the time to give her a sense of belonging so she would never regret anything.
  • Jing-Mei'south proper name too has a deep pregnant to it that her begetter explains to her the night before they're expected to meet her older sisters. "Jing" refers to something of skillful quality after washing away imperfections and "Mei" is short for "meimei," a term for "picayune sister" equally a shout-out to her older sisters.
  • Suyuan'south name can translate to "long-cherished wish" which, in her case, was to see her daughters once more and though she wasn't able to do so, Jing-Mei is able to fulfill that wish for her and see her sisters.
• Memento MacGuffin: The jade necklaces.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: An-mei's mother, trapped into a horrific marriage to her rapist, commits suicide by poison, but does and then two days before the new year. Folklore states that the third day after death is when a spirit returns to settle old scores — and you practice not want a spirit angry with y'all on New year'south Day. An-mei's female parent ensures her daughter and son will be cared for.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In the movie, Ying's reaction subsequently she kills her child.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Rose might have eventually gotten around to cashing Ted's $10k check and divorce papers had he asked nicely, rather than show up in person to berate her for making him wait, angrily declaring that he's been adulterous on her and wants her to move out so he and his new wife can motion into the house. This pushes Rose to finally grow a spine (like he wanted) and declare that she will fight him to go along the house and get a meliorate divorce settlement.
• Odd Name Out: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Bing.
• Parental Abandonment:
  • Entirely unwillingly, on Suyuan's part.
  • An-Mei's mother, due to her circumstances. She takes An-Mei and then she could alive a improve life in a wealthier household, ironically committing this once more by abandoning An-Mei'due south younger brother. It's explained in the book that taking her son to a business firm where she serves equally a concubine would rob him of a future, since information technology would cut him off from his father's family even so never belong or be treated well in the new i.
• Pet the Canis familiaris: The introduction of 2nd Married woman seems to be this. She gives An-Mei a "genuine" pearl necklace as a welcoming offering. Then An-Mei's female parent exposes the necklace as simulated to An-Mei, hinting at Second Wife's conniving and manipulative nature...
• Poor Communication Kills: Mr. St. Clair could never understand his married woman fully because of this, resulting in a wedlock run mostly past tolerance than true love. Fifty-fifty Lena realizes that her father can but "put words in her female parent's mouth." Likewise a common case betwixt the mothers and daughters.
  • This is played tragically in the case of Canning and Suyuan Woo just before her death. Suyuan discovered that her abandoned daughters were withal alive and a friend plant them shopping together and wrote her a letter almost this which reignites the hope that had faded away over decades. She tries to encourage Canning to go to Communist china merely neglects to mention the reason why she wants to get and he refuses because he thought she just wanted to go along a holiday at the time and they were getting too old to exist tourists in their seventies. Not long afterward this, she dies from an aneurysm and only too late does Canning realize the meaning of the words when he receives a letter from his wife'due south daughters. He confesses to his aunt and Jing-Mei that it's one of the biggest regrets of his life.
• Precision F-Strike: In the film adaptation, Ted gives this to his own mother later she makes remarks towards Rose. Likewise, Rose afterward gives Ted this when calling out on his emotional neglect of her.
• Pretty in Mink: Waverly's fiancé giving her a mink coat.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: While the novel mentions Robert Schumann and his Kindersczenen equally the pianoforte slice that June was playing badly as a child, the film adaptation replaces it with "Humoresque Opus 101 No. 7" by Antonín Dvořák, which the kid June messes upwards on at the piano.
• Rape as Backstory: An-Mei's female parent in "Magpies."
• Rape equally Drama:
  • Tyan-yu and Lindo in "The Red Candle." Huang Taitai enables and condones this because she wants an heir. However, nothing happens anyway. In the film, Tyan-yu thrusts something at Lindo and makes her scream — just it'due south but his pet lizard! His mom is in Selective Obliviousness.
  • Poor An-Mei's female parent gets this in spades. 2nd Wife arranged her fierce rape in lodge to trap her into concubinage. Being the degraded Fourth Wife of her rapist is 1 of many things that drives her to suicide.
• "Rediscovering Roots" Trip: Jing-Mei/June goes to China after her mother'due south expiry. In experiencing life in Cathay and telling her two half-sisters nigh their mother, she is finally able to make peace with her Chinese heritage and her tumultuous relationship with her mom.
• Rich Bowwow: Ying-ying in her youth earlier she was broken past her terrible showtime marriage. The 2d Wife in An-mei's story is this to a T.
• The Roaring '20s: In the sequences with the mothers' childhoods. More axiomatic in An-mei and Ying-ying'due south stories, given how they were raised in wealthy families with some Western influence.
• Rounded Character: A specifically-praised aspect of the novel is that it was among the virtually prominent to portray Chinese-American women as such.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • Linda and Harold'southward marriage is not-then-subtly symbolized past the bedside table he made in college: a huge slab of granite on spindly little legs that'll collapse under the slightest force per unit area. She finds it ugly and useless yet keeps it effectually considering he likes information technology (much similar the terms of their marriage), and oftentimes has to tiptoe around information technology. Effectually the same time that her female parent'due south Armor-Piercing Question makes Linda aware of how dysfunctional their marriage is, his lamentable table collapses in the guest sleeping room her mother is staying in.
  • Rose and Ted'due south garden. Her inability to make whatever choices means he decides everything, including the house's carefully trimmed yard. After they dissever, she lets the garden become overrun with weeds due to her indecision. When he comes over to browbeat her into signing the divorce papers so he can remarry and motility his new wife in, he declares his intention to rip up the 1000 to put in something new. This helps Rose notice the forcefulness to tell him "no." She declares that she likes the wild look of the yard and will fight him to keep the house, since she refuses to be a weed that he can just pluck upward and throw out of his life.
• Sexless Wedlock: Lindo's and Tyan-yu'southward wedlock, being he has no interest in her and is downright terrified at the thought of consummating the marriage. Too, there's the fact they're children when they're married.
• So Beautiful, Information technology's a Curse: An-Mei's female parent, whose beauty attracted Wu-Tsing enough that Second Wife was able to convince him to rape and marry her against her volition.
• Stage Mom: Suyuan and Lindo in regards to their daughters' piano playing and chess playing. Suyuan especially counts since the only reason Jing-Mei picked upward the piano in the outset identify was that Suyuan was trying to force her into being a child star.
• Strong Family unit Resemblance: "Together we look like our mother." Jing-Mei, finding her lost sisters.
• There Are Two Kinds of People in the Earth: When Suyuan scolds little June for playing the piano badly, she tries telling the little girl that there are "Only ii kinds of girl: obedient or follow-own-heed. Only one kind of girl could live in this business firm: obedient kind."
• Trophy Wife: Wu-Tsing engages in concubinage to attain a few of them.
• "Well Done, Son!" Guy: Waverly and Jing-Mei feel this near their mothers, who constantly compared each of their daughters to the other's.
• You lot Are a Credit to Your Race: Implied by Ted's mother Mrs. Jordan when she speaks to Rose at an outdoor barbecue.
• You Know What They Say About X...: Once again implied by Mrs. Hashemite kingdom of jordan to Rose.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheJoyLuckClub

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