The Joy Luck Club Socratic Seminar Questions - 1104 Words

Jia-yi (Jenny) Cen AP Literature and Composition 23 July 2015 The Joy Luck Club Socratic Seminar Questions The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, exposes the paradoxical relationships between Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters. Although both sides experience their own strife in life, the mothers are probably most notable for their struggle in assimilating to society. Given that they are the first generations to have contact with the unfamiliar culture, they must set foot onto the foreign land and sustain a stable life in order to provide for her children and give them a prosperous life. The mothers are required to adapt to the language, environment, social roles, and etc. Flexibility and adaptability varies from person to person. Before the novel begins, Tan introduces the story with a brief prologue about a Shanghai women and her swan. Her prior expectations before coming to America was crushed entirely by the reality she later encounters. The woman sworn to give her American-raised daughter the swan feather and â€Å"tell her [the story] in perfect American Englishâ €  (pg. 3) one day. This is an example of â€Å"culture shock† which is common for many people who move to another country. â€Å"Culture shock†, as the Oxford Dictionary defines it, is a disorientation experienced when [one is] suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture. My experience as an American-raised Chinese is somewhat similar to the novel. I lacked an English background, but I did not experience much