Table of Contents
Conveying Theme Through Clothing
In the Joy Luck Club and the Third and Last Continent, both written by Asian American authors, female characters are depicted as striving to find the right place in relationship and understand their identities. In both stories, female characters grow up with Asian culture while their husbands either grow up in American culture or have a multicultural experience. As their relationship goes on, lack of communication gradually amplifies the gap created by culture difference and even generates conflicts as female characters do not understand what their partners want to get out of their relationship. In this essay, the approaches of how Wayne Wang and Jhumpa Lahiri use clothing as a symbol to convey the common theme – female characters struggle in self-realization in a cross-cultural relationship – in Rose Hsu’s story in the movie version of Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club and The Third and Final Continent would be discussed.
Amy Tan, the author of the Joy Luck Club, was born in 1952 in California. Her mother was born to a wealthy family in Shanghai, China, but experienced a disastrous marriage before she escaped from Chinese Civil War to US and married Tan’s father (Amy Tan’s). That is why, in Tan’s writing, she tends to frequently involve the element of clashes of two culture with the focus on struggle of women in relationship. For example, in the Joy Luck Club, Tan reveals conflicts in cross-cultural relationship through portraying Rose Hsu Jordan and her husband Ted’s discontent with their relationship at the beginning. In 1993, the movie Joy Luck Club, directed by Asian American director Wayne Wang, was on (The Joy Luck Club).
In the movie, Wang made an interesting choice in Rose Hsu’ clothing to highlight the dynamic of her position and her feelings during her marriage. Likewise, Indian American author Jumpa Lahiri addresses similar issues in the story The Third and Final Continent from her book Interpreter of Maladies, written in 1960s and published in 1999 (Interpreter of Maladies). Using a female character’s clothing choice as symbol, Lahiri depicts how partners in cross-cultural, arranged marriage go from containing unwillingness and conflicts to the final assimilate to each other’s value and American value.
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Color of Clothing as a Symbol in the Joy Luck Club
Clothing, especially the color and shape of clothing, as a visual stimulus reflects the personalities of characters and the emotion of characters. At the beginning of Rose Hsu Jordan and Ted Jordan’s story in the movie as shown in Figure 1, Rose is wearing warm color sweater, but, by the end of the story, she starts to wear darker color clothing when she is ready to confront what her heart tells her to act as shown in Figure 2. The change in the color of Rose’s clothing suggests her change in personality and her attitude toward her relationship with Ted.
Growing up in an Asian family, Rose tends to the culture of being submissive and forbearing in a relationship just like how her mother has always done – can never get divorced and ‘must save’ a broken marriage (Tan, 62). At the beginning of Rose and Ted’s marriage, Rose always relies on Ted to make all decisions, even small to what to have for dinner. The light tan color sweater that Rose wears at the beginning of the story assists the communication of Rose’s submissive personality to the audience. Just like other warm colors, light tan gives off ‘a soothing, healing effect’ and make the people who are wearing them seem easy to approach (What the Color). At this scene, director Wang chooses a warm color for Rose because he wants to depict Rose as a docile figure, who is easy to communicate and willing to submit.
Since the argument with Ted and learning about her grandma’s story, Rose decides to protect what she deserve instead of keeping being submissive to her husband’s decisions and regret at the moment of death like what her grandma has done. By the end of their story, when Rose confidently and angrily yells at Ted to let him ‘get out of [Rose’s] house’, Rose is wearing a cold dark blue overcoat with a pair of big round ear ring (Joy Luck Club). Rose’s striking transformation to be a decisive and confident woman in her relationship with Ted makes Ted’s face be filled with shock and some fear. The dark color of Rose clothing on Figure 2 strengthens Rose’s transformation by forming a contrast with the previous warm color clothing she has used to wear.
Dark Blue signals confidence and shows that the people who are wearing dark blue clothing ‘do not allow others to sway them from their chosen paths’ (What the color). What’s more, for married woman, the earrings they wear ‘state her status’ in the society as well as in the family (Meaning and Significance). The contrasting warm color light tan and cold color dark blue helps convey Rose’s transformation in her personality as well as how she positions herself in the relationship: going from docile to confidence and decisive. She is used to follow ancient Asian culture – being submissive to his husband and neglect her own voice as a woman in marriage. However, by the end of the story, she grows into a decisive woman how dare to speak out her inner feelings to gain what she deserves.
Type of Clothing as a Symbol in the Third and Last Continent
In the story The Third and Last Continent, author Jumphi Lahiri also uses clothing of a character as a symbol to contribute to the theme about Asian female characters’ struggle in cross-cultural relationship. Unlike director Wang, who focuses on the color of the clothing, Lahiri highlights how types of clothing reflects a character’s choice of identity. Narrator’s arranged wife, Mala, grows up in Bangladesh while the narrator has lived in London and has been living with a family in Massachusetts, US for long time. The lack of common experience and communication makes both partners uncomfortable with their relationship at first.
When Mrs. Croft aggressively questioning Mala’s behaviors and her sari, the narrator realizes that, just like Mala, the narrator, Mala’s husband, belongs to the marginalized population in US instead of completely an American, despite all those years he has lived in US. From this scene, it can be inferred that, because of the traditional clothing, both Mala and her husband are recognized as an outsider. To both Mala and her husband, this period of lost in figuring out their identity is symbolized by Mala’s choice of wearing sari. Sari as a traditional Southern Asian clothing and the fashion heritage in Indian tradition represents the cultural identity of India (Modest or Provocative). Thus, wearing sari means that Mala and her husband still chooses to live under Indian traditions.
Although Mrs. Croft criticizes the couple’s incompatibility in American society, the couple learns about their similarity in their identities and starts to value each other more in their journey of searching their identities. The couple gradually fall in love with each other and adopt to American culture together: they start to wear ‘drawstring pajamas’ (197). Starting to wear drawstring pajamas instead of fancy traditional clothing, Mala states that she is ‘American citizen now’ (197). Although Mala faces criticism from people like Mrs. Croft, who represents the generation before her, she transforms from a conventional Indian woman, who serves her husband all the time, to an American citizen, who is rather a companion of her husband. Mala’s change in the type of clothing she decides to wear helps make her change in her choice of identity clearer by forming a contrast between the fancy sari and casual downstring pajamas.
In conclusion, both Wayne Wang and Jhumpa Lahiri use clothing as symbol to reflect the growth of female character in their cross-cultural marriage. Wang uses the color of the female character Rose Hsu Jordan’s clothing to show her transformation while Lahiri uses the type of clothing that the female character wears. From wearing warm color clothing to cold color such as dark blue, Rose changes from an approachable and docile person to a decisive person. Her change in personality also signifies her change in position in her marriage. She finds her real identity – a decisive woman who dare to have and fight her own voice in a relationship.
Similarly, Lahiri uses the change in the type of clothing that female character wears to reveal her self-realization and change in identity. Differently, while Wang focuses on the change of color of clothing, Lahiri focuses on the change of type of clothing. Mala used to wear sari when she just gets to US. Because of this, people around feel strange about her outfit, and she find herself as a servant to her husband instead of a wife. By the end of the story, Mala is accustomed to downstring pajamas. This signifies that her habits have transformed from Indian style to more American style. That is why, instead of serving their husbands like other Indian women do, Mala finds herself the right place in her relationship: being the companion of her husband and supporting each other.
Works Cited
- Cantu, Kristen. “Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club: About the Author & Historical Context.” Prezi.com, 10 Aug. 2016, prezi.com/uyryqligfjgo/amy-tans-the-joy-luck-club-about-the-author-historical-context/.
- “Interpreter of Maladies.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Nov. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpreter_of_Maladies.
- Li, Guicang. “On Spatial Writing and the Question of Identity in the ‘The Third and Final Continet.’” Docin, www.docin.com/p-1450885850.html.
- Joy Luck Club. Directed by Wayne Wang, performances by Ming-Na Wen, Tamlyn Tomita, Lauren Tom, Lisa Lu, More, September 9th, 1993.
- “Meaning and Significance of Wearing Earrings.” Kaleidoscope Effect, 31 Aug. 2017, nasvete.com/meaning-and-significance-of-wearing-earrings/.
- Myles, Alex. “What the Color of Our Clothes Says about Our Personality.” Elephant Journal, Elephant Journal, 29 Sept. 2015, www.elephantjournal.com/2015/09/what-the-color-of-our-clothes-say-about-our-personality/.
- Ved, M. (2006, Sep 04). Modest or provocative, the sari still reigns. New Straits Times Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/271954395?accountid=2364
