more than one level. On the first level, the most apparent level, the novel tells the story of the Joy Luck Club and its meetings. Within that context, each of the women tells her story, set in the past before the Joy Luck Club began in 1949. The novel is set in its "present" time in 1989, forty years after the founding of the club. By the end of the novel, the reader has been treated not only to the stories of the four Chinese women who immigrated to the U.S. but also to the stories of their daughters. Each set of women--the four older women and the younger women--constitute an interacting group so that the friendships and rivalries of the older women can be compared to the friendships and rivalries that develop among the younger. The intent is to show the immigrant experience, its causes, and its consequences over generations, in the process allowing the youn
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