Reclaiming Women’s Voices: A Feministic Interpretation Ofamy Tan’s The Joy Luck Clubfrom an Empowerment Theory Perspective

Abstract

Literature is an exploration of empowering voices of the society; here is one such Chinese born American mothers’ club: The Joy Luck Club (1989) that has the voice of grace and sacrifice. This novel was written by an American author, Amy Tan that discloses the voices of Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hus, Lindo Jong and Ying-ying St. Clair who relate their Chinese life in the United States and their challenging experiences as an immigrant. This story deals with various themes such identity, experience of immigrants and complicated family issues faced by Chinese mothers and American daughters. As said by Simone de Beauvoir, “…her wings are cut and then she is blamed for not knowing how to fly”, Tan has dealt the novel in a feministic point, in which the cruel nature of the man is revealed and the tragic lives of the women characters give us the actual understanding of how a life should be led in the diasporic community. This also reflects the power of the women’s voice that gives hope, love, joy and luck to their daughters that made each one of them define their identity. This paper stresses the importance of the empowered voices of non-Americanised Chinese mothers from the “Feminist Literary Criticism” perspective. Those women strive to go for reconciliation of the self and peaceful coexistence to transform their lamentation into an acclamation of their own selves.