Trials...errors...disappointment. Many adolescents fail to meet their parents' expectations and, as a result, often distort their own reality. The book The Joy Luck Club, published in 1989 by Amy Tan, takes place in the 1980s. The setting alternates between San Francisco and China. The novel focuses on four Chinese immigrant mothers, who experience difficulties raising their Asian-American daughters. They end up understanding themselves and their family members better. This creates a sense of unity between each mother-daughter relationship. Tan powerfully demonstrates his theme, about how parental expectations affect their children; using the serpentine mother-daughter relationship issues, communication issues between them, and mental obstacles that every couple faces. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get an original essayUnquestionably, human society is known for sharing many kinships, in the novel The Joy Luck Club it presents issues relevant to each mother-daughter couple faces within their relationship. The biggest problem 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 as much as possible. Her mother expected her to be the most exceptional and 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 flee into a dark, empty alley. Before running away, Waverly explains, "Why do you have to use me to show off?" If you want to show off, why don't you learn to play chess? (Tan 101). This act of defiance by Waverly demonstrates the tension between her and her mother. To explain further, Waverly stands up for herself because she wanted to be her own person. She felt like her mother was taking all the credit and being bossy. This further complicates their relationship, and with the addition of her mother's expectations, Waverly can no longer suppress her true feelings. Another example of a complex relationship between a mother and daughter is June Woo's point of view. Shortly after her mother's death, June took her mother's place at the mahjong table. She chats with her aunts and discovers that her twin sisters from China have asked her 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 said to her aunts: “What am I going to say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything” (Tan 31). This quote shows that June and Suyuan Woo had a very distant relationship. Because her mother was constantly changing her immigration story, June did not feel connected to her mother and often wondered if she really knew her mother after her death. Additionally, with her mother's expectations, their convoluted relationship is even more strained than before, as shown in the novel. But because of these complex relationships, mother-daughter pairs strengthen their bonds. Throughout the novel, the four girls misunderstand their mother's expectations. Growing up, Lena always had to interpret what her Chinese mother said and often found herself lying to others about what her mother said to protect their feelings. She believed her mother had the secret and mysterious ability to predict the future before it happened. Later in the story, Lena is having problems in her marriage to Harold and is too afraid to reveal these problems tohis mother. Even though her mother could clearly spot the instability in her marriage, she passively tries to help Lena fix it. While Lena gave her mother a brief tour of her new house, her mother constantly pointed out mistakes to her. Lena had intuitive perception, she can see all this. And it annoys me that she only sees the bad sides. But then I look around and see that everything she says is true. And that convinces me that she can see what else is going on between Harold and me. She knows what will happen to us (Tan 164). This quote shows how Lena loses herself because of her mother's expectations. These expectations cause Lena to constantly overthink how her mother would perceive her, which harms her self-esteem and confidence. This conflict also affects her marriage as it results in her inability to take initiative in her unhappy relationship with Harold. Additionally, since her mother, Ying-ying, grew up with the influences of ancient traditional Chinese culture on destiny; she constantly moves furniture and points out imperfections to prevent bad omens from occurring. For Lena, this means that her mother does not approve of 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 considers this to be mistreatment. This “mistreatment” that Lena sees makes her lose the rationality of her mother’s intentions towards her. She is no longer able to grasp the greater meaning of her mother's protection through belief in fate and omens. Additionally, The Psychology of Expectations states that “human beings have a natural tendency to base their hopes for happiness on fulfilled expectations” (Johnson 1). 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 pleasing her mother. By doing this, she sees herself as a failure whenever it seems like her mother does not approve of Lena's decisions or actions. This makes her feel morally outraged towards her mother, making her unable to realize that her mother is trying to warn her about her toxic marriage. Although the girls in the Joy Luck Club misinterpreted their mother's expectations, they eventually discovered the deeper meaning of their mother's protection and tender care through these expectations. Additionally, Amy Tan demonstrates her theme through the mental adversities that every mother-daughter pair faces. Throughout the story, Suyuan Woo had superlative expectations for her daughter June. June's mother tells her that she will one day become a child prodigy. Because 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 her daughter's abilities 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 memory information. This embedded an unrealistic expectation in June, which can be seen later in the story and affect his mentality. After failing many of his mother's tests, "and after seeing my mother's disappointed face again, something in me began to die" (Tan 144). In the quote, when he refers to "something inside June dying", this applies to June's hopes of becoming perfect in her mother's eyes and pleasing her. Since June felt the need to be an ideal, impeccable daughter, she was ashamed of herself for appearing discouraged in her mother's eyes. To further explain this topic, in the article.