Joy Lock Club Essay, Research Paper

The Joy Luck Club

Log #1

In the novel, “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan, the ignorance and disregard of, and the necessity of love are all introduced. As the characters in the story explain their life stories and memories. The characters in “The Joy Luck Club” seemed to take love for granted, by ignoring love and concentrating on material possessions and hiding their true identities. It seems to me that they don’t notice or realize loves importance.

Harold, Lens St. Clair’s husband is the one character that takes love for granted. This I noticed when Lena leans over him in their car and states, “ I love you.” He responded by asking Lena a question about his car, which seems to be more important to him, than his relationship with her. Harold does not realize the importance of love. He only thinks about material possessions, since Harold does not show his true nature, he reveals that he had a lack of love for himself as an individual. The love that you have for yourself is a necessity in live, because it provides self-respect “ if one respects oneself, one will respect and love others.”

The story of Lindo Jong provides insight into the concept of revealing your true nature. To “keep everything inside” as Lindo John provides for not being able to love to his fullest. Lindo Jong hides “under a red marriage scarf” in attempt to shield herself from the outside world. Her hiding demonstrates that to be able to love, you must be able to first reveal your true nature.

Ying-Ying St Clair stands as an example of the desire to remain hidden as she says, “all these years I kept my true nature hidden, running along like a small shadow so nobody could catch me.” “The image of the shadow relates directly to the red marriage scarf.” They both try to conceal their true natures because the result of revealing your true nature self may be that of “pain”. The importance of love goes unnoticed, as the characters take love for granted and expect it to occur naturally to them. The case of taking love for granted does occur later, and has its results and consequences.

The characters realize that that they are taking love for granted when they feel meaningless and uncomfortable, and stop doing so by either ending the relationship, or confronting the problem. By not taking love for granted and realizing “there’s absolutely nothing left to save” in her marriage, Rose Hsu Jordan recognizes she must divorce her husband. She does not feel comfortable with her life. She comprehends that she is not what she continually pretends to be. Therefor, she stops taking love for granted and ignored it, and moves on to a better, more comfortable life with a feeling of being needed.

Lindo Jong compares love to a gill and as to heaven. This hill symbolizes the steps that she must take to truly attain love and enter heaven, her comparison to happiness and a comfortable lifestyle. Love proves hard to attain but Lindo Jong learns to embrace it and except it as best as she can. The painful feeling, the lifting of the scarf or the shadow opens the door to the true nature of the character. This love provides better understanding and a better love of your own character. It makes the people more comfortable with themselves and makes them feel important, needed, and loved.

All in all I believe that this book has taught the true meaning of love, and how not to take it for granted. Once I completed the book I realized that it wasn’t that good, but I still enjoyed it. The one problem that I found with this book was that the characters confused me, also that the chapters switched from one family to the next. I would have liked it more if the novel just went straight through, and I feel that many things were repeatedly said, but not always exactly. In the end this book was good, but not one that I would personally choose to read over again.