Bond between mothers and daughters explored in The Joy Luck ClubThroughout the novel The Joy Luck Club, author Amy Tan explores issues of tradition and change and their impact on the bond between mothers and daughters. The theme is developed through eight women who tell their distinct stories, which coalesce into four pairs of mother-daughter relationships. Chinese mothers, so focused on their own culture, do not want to realize what is happening around them. They don't want to accept the fact that their daughters are growing up in a culture so different from theirs. Lindo Jong tells his daughter Waverly: "I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents' promise. It means nothing to you because to you, promises mean nothing. A girl can promise to come dinner, but if she has a headache, a traffic jam, if she wants to watch a favorite movie on television, she no longer has a promise my daughter can't hear me. She's sitting by her beautiful swimming pool. and only hears her Sony Walkman, her cordless phone, her big, important husband asking her why they have charcoal and no lighter fluid" (Tan 64)American girls, on the other. side, the other half of the inseparable couple, talks about how their mother's tradition, culture and beliefs helped them gain many self-awarenesses. These achievements are both positive and negative. Jing-Mei Woo talks about how her mother wanted her to be the next Shirley Temple. "My mother believed that in America you could be anything you wanted. You could open a restaurant... You could become instantly famous." Of course... middle of paper ...... Heung, Marina "Daughter-Text/Mother-Text: Matrilineage in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club." Feminist Studies (Fall 1993): 597-616. Tan, Amy The Joy Luck Club New York: Ivy Books, 1989. Huntley, ED Amy Tan: A Critical Companion. Westport: Greenwood P, 1998. Ling, Amy. Between Worlds: Women Writers of Chinese Ancestry: Pergamon, 1990. Maynard, Joyce “The Almost All-American Girls.” by The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan and The Temple of my Familiar, by Alice Walker July 1989: 70, 72, 180. Miner, Valerie "The Joy Luck Club" The-Nation. 566-9 Schell, Orville. “Your mother is in your bones. » Reverend of the Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, March 19, 1989: 3, 28. Wang, Dorothy. Game of Show and Not Tell. "Reverend of the Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan. Newsweek April 17, 1989: 68-69.