Discussion on the Function of the Fairy Tales in the Joy Luck Club

Name of course: English Reading 3

Student No.:10160710319

Name: 杨雨沁

Instructor: Prof. Junsong Chen

Date: Jan.1st, 2018

Discussion on the Function of the Fairy Tales in The Joy Luck Club

        There are some stories at the beginning of each chapter which seem to have little relation with the following body content. I later recognized that they are Chinese fairy tales that might indicate something the author wanted to tell the readers.

        Generally speaking, the legendary Chinese myth is the earliest records of our primitive ancestor’s original understanding of the world’s origin, natural phenomenon and social life. It is the language art of collective creation by the ancient working people, which has strong artistic charm. With its profound meaning and vivid expression, it lays a solid foundation for later literature and provides abundant material for the future literature. Almost all the Chinese poems, novels and plays have been nourished by fairy tales.

        Two of the fairy tales have left me a deep impression. One is placed before the first chapter, Feathers from A Thousand Li Away. The Joy Luck Club begins with a bleak story of a Chinese old woman emigrated to the United States and tells the story of  the transition of ”ugly duckling—beautiful swan—white feather.” Over the years, the old lady had always been eager to tell her “Americanized” girl about her past life stories and also wanted to leave her the ‘precious feather”.She said,”This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions.” At the end of the novel, the daughter Jingmei Woo went across the ocean to meet her twin stepsisters with the goose feather, completing Suyuan’s long-cherished wish. It is easy to associate the introduction tale with a Chinese folk wisdom which implies a small gift conveying great affection. In fact, the twisty goose feather story has long been far away from its original Chinese version and has even involve the famous fairy tale “The Ugly Duckling” written by Hans Christian Andersen. The goose feather that had been modified by Amy Tan not only represented the unfortunate life of Suyuan in old China, but also referred to the nostalgia of a wandering immigrant mother in a strange country, which symbolized the dream of a mother want the two generations to live an ideal happy life. Although Suyuan passed away, the precious goose feather  finally returned to the land where it had belonged, so the immigrant could successfully find her spiritual home back.

        The other impressive fairy tale is The Moon Lady. On one evening of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Ying-Ying Gu together with her family appreciated the moon and showed worship for the moon lady. While staring at unreal moon in the water, Ying-Ying fell off the boat and was saved by some fishermen. After the drowning, she was separated from her family and saw a drama about the moon lady was performed on a stage. Ying-Ying was moved, so deep in her heart that she had remembered such lingering moonlit night. I guess the Chang’e in Chinese traditional mythology was the original figure of the moon lady. However, instead of deliberately using this folkloric image to attract the readers, Amy Tan expressed Ying-Ying’s unique emotions by describing the moon lady story. In this article, the Gu’s visited Taihu Lake to worship the moon lady, wishing to get blessing, also Ying-Ying’s memory about the moon lady represented the desire and pursuit of happiness in her heart. At the end of this chapter, Ying-Ying said,” But now that I am old, moving every year closer to the end of my life, I also feel closer to the beginning. And I remember everything that happened that day because it has happened many times in my life. The same innocence, trust, and restlessness, the wonder, fear, and loneliness. How I lost myself. I remember all these things. And tonight, on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, I also remember what I asked the Moon Lady so long ago.” At last, she told us her sincere wish,” I wished to be found.” This is because over the years, the old and lonely Mrs. St. Clair had produced a similar psychological sense of self-lost. She lost her former noble status of the old China; she could hardly communicate with other people about her worries now, so she became a completely redundant person in American society. Apparently, there was another moral tagged by Amy Tan to the Moon Lady—that is the return of Ying-Ying’s Chinese identity and the return of her own culture. In ancient China, the goddess of the moon was a symbol of family love and reunion. Here Amy Tan used the traditional image to express her good wish of tracing back one’s cultural root.