Trial...error...disappointment. Many teenagers fail to keep up with their parents' expectations and often distort their reality as a result. The book The Joy Luck Club, published in 1989 by Amy Tan, is set around the 1980s. The setting alternates between San Francisco and China. The novel focuses on four Chinese immigrant mothers, who experience complications in raising their Asian-American daughters. They eventually gain a better understanding of their identity and their family members. This creates a sense of unity between each mother-daughter relationship. Tan powerfully demonstrates his theme of how parents' expectations influence their children; exploiting the serpentine problems related to the mother-daughter relationship, the communication problems between them and the mental obstacles that every couple must face. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay Unquestionably, human society is known to share many kinships, in the novel The Joy Luck Club, presents issues relevant to every mother-daughter pair faces within their relationship. A very significant issue is between Waverly Jong and Lindo Jong. As a child, Waverly won many chess tournaments. Her mother was extremely proud and always wanted to show off Waverly to the greatest extent possible. Her mother expected her to be the most outstanding and to surpass her previous scores compared to her last tournaments. Because of this, Waverly feels ashamed and expresses her feelings to her mother. This prompted Lindo to lash out at her daughter, causing Waverly to run away into a dark, empty alley. Before running away, Waverly broadcasts, “why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, then why don't you learn to play chess?" (Tan 101). This act of defiance on Waverly's part demonstrates the tension between her and her mother. To explain further, Waverly defends herself because she wanted to be her person She felt like her mother took all the credit and was overbearing. This further complicates their relationship, and with the addition of her mother's expectations, Waverly can no longer suppress her true feelings. of a complex relationship between mother and daughter, is seen from June Woo's point of view. Shortly after her mother's death, June takes her mother's place at the mahjong table and discovers that her sisters twins from China have been looking for contact. She is informed by An-mei that her Chinese sisters want her to visit them in China. June is reluctant to visit them and tell them about her mother's death. She tells her aunts: “ What will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I know nothing” (Tan 31). This quote shows that June and Suyuan Woo had a very distant relationship. As her mother kept changing her immigration history, June feels out of touch with her mother and often wonders if she really knew about her mother after her death. Furthermore, with her mother's expectations, this makes their twisted relationship even more strained than before, as shown in the novel. But because of these complex relationships, mother-daughter pairs strengthen their bond with each other. Throughout the novel, the four daughters misunderstand their mother's expectations. Growing up, Lena always had to interpret what her Chinese mother said, and she often found herself lying to others about what her mother said to protect their feelings. He believed that his mother had the secret and mysterious ability to predict the future before it happened. Later in the story, Lena experiences problems in her marriage to Harold and is too afraid to reveal them to her mother. Even if his mother manages toclearly identifying the instability in his marriage, he passively tries to help Lena resolve it. While Lena gave her mother a short tour of her new home, her mother constantly pointed out the mistakes. Lena had an intuitive perception, she can see all this. And it bothers me that all he sees are the bad parts. But then I look around and see that everything he said is true. And that convinces me that she can see what else is going on between me and Harold. She knows what will happen to us (Tan 164). This quote shows how Lena loses herself due to her mother's expectations. These expectations cause Lena to constantly think about how her mother would perceive her, which damages her self-esteem and confidence. This conflict also affects her marriage because it results in her inability to take the lead in her unhappy relationship with Harold. Furthermore, since her mother, Ying-ying, grew up with the influences of ancient traditional Chinese culture on destiny; constantly moves furniture and points out imperfections to prevent evil omens from occurring. To Lena, this denotes that her mother does not approve of her or her new home with Harold. Even though her mother's intention was to foster Lena's growth and try to help her in life, Lena sees it as mistreatment. This “mistreatment” that Lena sees makes her lose the rationality of what her mother's intentions were for her. He is no longer able to grasp the greater meaning behind his mother's protection through belief in fate and omens. Therefore, The Psychology of Expectations states that “human beings have a natural tendency to place their hopes for happiness on fulfilled expectations” (Johnson 1). The problem of expecting certain actions from others can lead to disappointment. Because Lena feels enormous pressure to be perfect in front of her mother, she associates the feeling of happiness with her mother's satisfaction. In this way she considers herself a failure whenever it seems that her mother does not approve of Lena's decisions or actions. This makes her feel morally indignant towards her mother, which makes her unable to realize that her mother is trying to warn her about her toxic marriage. Although the daughters of The Joy Luck Club misinterpreted their mother's expectations, they ended up discovering the deeper meaning behind their mother's protection and tender care through these expectations. Furthermore, Amy Tan demonstrates her theme through the mental adversities that every mother-daughter duo faces. Throughout the story, Suyuan Woo had superlative expectations for her daughter June. June's mother tells her that one day she will be a child prodigy. Since Suyuan Woo spent her work cleaning houses, she collected magazines and read about exceptional children. This inspired Suyuan Woo, who then tried to achieve this by testing his daughter's ability in many areas of expertise such as finding the queen of hearts in a deck of cards, predicting the temperature or even the ability to recall certain information from memory. This embedded an unrealistic expectation in June, which can later be seen in the story affecting his mindset. After failing many of her mother's tests, "and seeing my mother's disappointed face once again, something inside me began to die" (Tan 144). In the quote, when it refers to "something inside June dying," it applies to June's hopes of becoming perfect in her mother's eyes and pleasing her. Because June felt the need to be an ideal and flawless daughter, she was ashamed of herself for appearing as a dejection in her mother's perspective. To further explain this topic, in the article When the.