In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, interweaved stories about the conflicts between Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters, the author explores the difficulties of preserving one's heritage after settling in a foreign country. Each mother and daughter are baffled by each other’s beliefs and culture. The girls in the book are often ashamed of their mothers and they consider them to be unbefitting of the norms in American society. It is often difficult for them to relate to their mothers because they were raised in a different world and time. This book diagnoses the process of synthesizing two cultures in one by demonstrating muteness as the central culprit of the gap between each pair of mother and daughter. The author explores the origins of muteness formed in each relationship through their lack of ability to communicate with one another and the difference between heritage, and offers the solution to vanquishing the cause with the unmuting of a mother.

 

The cultural barriers that exist between the mothers and the daughters are due to their inability to communicate with one another. These mothers and daughters cannot articulate or express themselves because both sides' muteness has created a cultural barrier. The concept of muteness is a major theme throughout the book. The opening parable of the book tells the tale of a Chinese woman who immigrates to America in hope of new opportunities. She dreams of raising an American daughter who will be full of joy and judged by her own worth and not her husband’s. This story introduces the issue of the language gap that acts as an obstacle to each immigrant mother and American-born daughter: “‘This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions.' And she waited, year after year, for the day she could tell her daughter this in perfect American English” (17). Although the mother desires to live out her hopes through her daughter, the muteness or lack of communication between them doesn’t allow her wish to fully come true. She wishes to gift the feather to her daughter. But in waiting to learn ‘perfect American English,’ she has never been able to translate her story and the sorrows that she experienced in China. Similarly, the symbolic meaning behind the feather would never be fully explained to her daughter.

 

Since the daughters in the book have no cultural or historic knowledge due to the muteness that creates a barrier, the mother and daughter develop misunderstandings. As the main characters are unable to reconcile their Chinese heritage with their American surroundings, it is difficult for them to interpret the ideas and emotions of each culture. In the third parable, a mother visits her daughter’s new condominium and is dismayed at the decorations in the suite. The daughter, who only cares about the furniture and beautiful appearance of her house, lives in an expensive and modern condo. While her mother, in contrast, lives by the traditions of the past. Giving her daughter a mirror to hang above the bed, resolves the solution and brings good "peach-blossom luck.” A mirror is placed at the foot of a bed, and she believes that it will cause her daughter’s marriage happiness to bounce back and deflect away. Instead of listening, the daughter dismisses the warning as just something ominous her mother would say:

 

“‘You cannot put mirrors at the foot of the bed. All your marriage happiness will bounce back and turn the opposite way.’

‘Well, that’s the only place it fits, so that’s where it stays,’ said the daughter, irritated that her mother saw bad omens in everything. She had heard these warnings all her life” (160).

 

It is obvious that the daughter does not understand her mother’s reasoning behind the advice because she grew up in America and does not understand her mother’s Chinese efforts. The barrier of muteness manifests an impasse.

 

In the book, the mothers overcome the cultural barriers and misunderstandings between each daughter by guiding them through stories and past experiences. Ying-ying married a man who abandoned her after getting pregnant. But with her second marriage to Clifford, Ying-ying became the ghost of the tiger she had once been. Now, her daughter, Lena, is also struggling to stay afloat in her marriage. Ying-ying decides to make a change: “And then my fierceness can come back, my golden side, my black side. I will use this sharp pain to penetrate my daughter’s tough skin and cut her tiger spirit loose. She will fight me, because this is the nature of two tigers. But I will win and give her my spirit, because this is the way a mother loves her daughter” (286). Here, Ying-ying is willing to share the painful past to cut Lena’s tiger spirit loose. She does not hope for Lena to walk down the same path. Amy Tan suggests that the unmuting of the mother is the only solution to vanquishing the culprit. The mother must give and release all of herself to the daughter, heavy in the language and symbols of her Chinese heritage, and rich in her full story. Although conflicts and cultural clashes are a main part of the book, they are all brought together and resolved by the stories of each mother.

 

Amy Tan utilizes the characters in the book to showcase the process of synthesizing two cultures into one. Each protagonist struggles to translate concepts and sentiments from one culture to another. The mothers' stories are not supported in American culture, and the daughters misinterpret their mothers' alien Chinese ways and beliefs. Lack of communication and muteness, living in different worlds, and the impacts of one’s individual history are all components to the misunderstandings in each relationship. To conquer this muteness, the mothers in the book must come true to her daughter about both the past and present. And with time, the daughters mature and realize that they are not so different from their mothers after all.