Amy Tan’s book ‘The Joy Luck Club’ is often praised for its portrayal of Chinese mother-daughter relationships. It does, however, provide a very narrow yet interesting of the men in both China and America at the time. Amy Tan’s father, John Tan, died of a brain tumor when she was only 15 years old.
Due to this tragedy, Tan did not have a father during her late high school years into adulthood. This may be a cause of her limited inclusion of male characters in ‘The Joy Luck Club’. While every one of the stories in the book have male characters, the focus is always on the female characters in the stories. In the early stories, the focus is on the mothers and their relationships with their mothers.
There are male characters, but they are mostly either absent or evil. In the middle stories, the focus is on the American-born daughters and their mothers, The fathers are present in these stories, but are merely that. They have no real purpose in the stories and are hardly mentioned. The men in the book are most involved in the late stories, with them having actual roles in the stories. Examples of this are Ted, the ex-husband of Rose, and Harold, the husband of Lena.
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Tan grew up in San Francisco, born to Chinese-American immigrants. When her father and brother passed away in 1977, Tan’s mother moved them to Europe. Her mother was known to be very superstitious and even seen as crazy. She moved the family to Europe because she felt that the family was cursed. Tan would become an avid reader, and later, of course, a writer. She graduated college at San Jose State University.
The role of men in Amy Tan’s books often seem to be extremely limited. And many critics have called her out for this. Mary Ellen Snodgrass wrote in her book: ‘Amy Tan: a Literary Companion’:
Critics have lambasted Amy Tan for a common feminist failing, the elevation of female characters and the vilification, abasement, of dismissal of males. A thorough examination of her canon proves otherwise, as in the case of the living father in the short story “Fish Cheeks” (1987), who feeds his teenage daughter her favorite food, a soft piece of flesh from beneath the eye of a steamed rock cod, which he plucks with his own chopsticks.
Amy Tan’s lack of men in her novels is not an act of sexism but is a result of growing up in large part without her father and brother. The lack of a male presence in her life perhaps makes men seem more foreign to her than women. The lack of men, of more accurately, the reduced role of men in her books and stories, may also be due to Chinese culture. In China, daughters are much closer to their mothers than their fathers.
In the story, “The Red Candle” in ‘The Joy Luck Club’, Lindo Jong is forced into a marriage with a boy named Tyan-yu. The village matchmaker came to Jong’s home when she was only a baby and assigned her to be married to Tyan-yu. The matchmaker’s arrangement had a profound effect on Jong’s childhood. She wrote, “Because I was promised to the Huangs’ son for marriage, my own family began treating me as if I belonged to somebody else.
My mother would say to me when the rice bowl went up to my face too many times, ‘Look at how much Huang Taitai’s daughter can eat’” (Tan 45). She had to move in with Tyan-yu’s family when she was only 12, due to her family’s home being destroyed. Her family moved away and she moved in with Tyan-yu (Tan 47).
Tyan-yu was very different from the other Chinese men in the book. He was not abusive, something that many of the other Chinese men in the book are. He is only a child when Lindo moves into the house. Lindo is very unhappy with her circumstances when she is forced to move in with the family. She is essentially a servant to the family. She has to cook and clean, just as the family’s servants do.
She has to cook especially for Tyan-yu, who is always complaining about Jong’s cooking. Tyan-yu is described as a,“selifsh boy-child” (Snodgrass 83), in ‘Amy Tan: a Literary Companion’. Tyan-yu is different from the other Chinese men in the book mostly due to his age. He sees Lindo more as a sister than as a wife. He does not have any interest in Lindo, but Lindo still catches the blame when Huang Taitai demands a son that is not provided. Lindo would devise a plan to trick the family and escape the marriage. She would move on from the failed marriage and move to the United States, where she remarried.
The next example from the book is from the St. Clair family. Clifford St. Clair is an American man that marries Ying-ying St. Clair. Clifford is a white Irish-American businessman who courts Ying-ying, who at the time was married but separated. When ying-ying learns of her husband’s death, she agrees to marry Clifford. Clifford is characterized by Tan as being a good father to Lena, but being clueless at times to Ying-ying’s mental health issues. Clifford was described by Mary Ellen Snodgrass as being, “largely clueless about the mental aberrations of his depressed wife Ying-ying.” (Snodgrass 112).
Clifford is very different from the other men in the book. He is different from Tyan-yu in many ways. Unlike Tyan-yu and Lindo Jong, Clifford and Ying-ying chose to marry. They were not set up by a matchmaker. Clifford is also different because he loves Ying-ying and is happy with their marriage, unlike Tyan-yu who never seemed to be interested in Lindo. Clifford is by far a ‘better’ husband than Tyan-yu. He is imperfect, of course, but he is a good husband to Ying-ying and father to Lena. He has a tendency to speak for Ying-ying at times, trying to perhaps sugarcoat the things that Ying-ying says. An example of this in the book is when Lena explains that:
My father, who only spoke a few canned Chinese expressions, insisted my mother learn English. So with him, she spoke in moods and gestures, looks and silences, and sometimes a combination of English punctuated by hesitations and Chinese frustration: “Shwo buchulai” -Words cannot come out. So my father would put words in her mouth. “I think mom is trying to say she’s tired,” he would whisper when my mother became moody. (Tan 108-109).
Clifford often put words in Ying-ying’s mouth. He may not have realized that he was doing it, and his intentions may have been good, but he did. The third and final example comes from the St. Clair family as well. Harold, a well intentioned architect who is married to Lena St. Clair, is the subject of this example. Harold is very involved in the story, unlike many of the book’s male characters.
He and Lena go into business together and establish an architectural firm. Lena offered to help Harold start it financially, but Harold did not want to involve money in their relationship. “He didn’t want to hear of taking any money from me, not as a favor, not as a loan, not as an investment, of even a down payment on a partnership. He said he valued our relationship too much. He didn’t want to contaminate it with money” (Tan 171).
Harold and Lena took the idea of not wanting to involve money very seriously. Even after they married, they still split the bills and groceries. Harold refused to pay for anything for their pet cat. Lena refused to pay for dinners with Harold’s clients. They took it to the very extreme. The issue would end up causing problems in their marriage. Both Lena and Harold were oblivious to this being an underlying problem in many of the problems they experience in their marriage, but when Lena’s mother, Ying-ying was visiting, she noticed these problems.
While looking at their divided grocery list on the fridge door, Ying-ying noticed a problem with the list. “‘This, you do not share!’ exclaims my mother in an astonished voice… then I see she is pointing to ‘Ice Cream’ on Harold’s list” (Tan 176). Ying-ying knows that Lena eats all of the ice cream, and that Harold probably does not eat any. This, however, is not really her point. She does not understand why Lena and Harold feel that they have to split everything down the middle.
Ying-ying is described by Lena as able to predict certain future events, but never does anything to stop it. At the end of the story, Ying-ying knocks over an end table that Harold had made. Lena said that she knew it would happen, and Ying-ying asks why she did not do anything to stop it.
Harold is different from the other men in the story because he is not at all controlling. Many of the male characters in the book are controlling over their wives but Harold is not. Harold does have his flaws, of course, such as being somewhat oblivious to Lena’s fears about their marriage. He is similar to Clifford as he is an American man, unlike Tyan-yu. He is also similar to Clifford as he and Lena chose to marry and were not set up by a matchmaker like Lindo and Tyan-yu.
The role of male characters in ‘The Joy Luck Club’ is often overlooked. Most of the time the focus is on the mother-daughter relationships and people forget about of disregard the male characters in the book. The male characters in ‘The Joy Luck Club’ have a much larger impact than has been perceived.
