Tan & Kincaid (Lucy & Joy)

It is not surprising to find in literature in general and literature based on autobiographical experiences of immigrants to the U.S. fiction that evolves around the theme of identity and a search for the self. In Tan's The Joy Luck Club and Kincaid's Lucy, this theme is primary. The Joy Luck Club unfolds the stories of four Chinese women and their Chinese-American daughters. The story evolves around the inherent ambiguities and conflict between the patriarchal and Taoist and Confucianist perspectives, culture, and learning of the mothers and the Americanized (read freedom of choice) daughters. In Lucy, Lucy leaves her native Jamaica to redefined herself outside of her mother's domineering influence though she discovers this is impossible.

In The Joy Luck Club, we see many examples of how a woman's identity is influenced by her mother. In the story of Ying-Ying St. Clair ("The Moon Lady"), we see that she is to learn of spiritualism and develop a worldview by observing her mother, "'What is a ceremony?' I asked�'It is a proper way to behave. You do this and that, so the gods do not punish you�You don't need to understand. Just behave, follow your mother's example'" (Tan 66).

In Waverly Jong's case, the mother-daughter transference of strength takes place. Waverly knows that the only rules that matter are those of her mother's, and while she cannot understand them she understands they are powerful (after all,

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pirit, because this is the way a mother loves her daughter" (Tan 287). On the other hand, Ying-Ying is well aware that her Americanized daughter is not going to be injected with the spirit of her will easily. As she says about her feelings when Lena was born, "But when she was born, she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and had been swimming away ever since" (Tan 274). In a similar manner, Lucy, a Jamaica teenager who emigrates to America to escape the dominance of her mother, must redefine herself independently of that influence and experience. She comes to America as an aupair to work for Lewis and Mariah and the couple's four children. Lucy is disillusioned with the cracks in the pretty surface of Lewis' and Mariah's life. Disillusioned with American life and bitter about her past life, Lucy must struggle to find meaning and fulfillment through developing her own identity. She does not like hurting her mother, but she knows that most of her sarcastic, resentful, responses do hurt her so she turns her face away after answering her. However, Lucy's mother, like the mothers in Tan's book, is with her even though she thinks she has fled her by fleeing to a new country. When she receives letters from her mother she

Category: Literature - T