The Cycles in Marriage

     In The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, it talks about the transition of Chinese women in America. Most of the stories were told by the mothers and daughters and their past and present life. In most of the stories, both the mother and daughter have problems with marriage. One specific cycle that keeps reoccurring is the issue with marriage. The example I have here is the mother and daughter problems from Lindo Jong and Waverly Jong. Their mother and daughter stories include a cycle that happens with both the mother and daughter.

     In Lindo Jong's story called The Red Candle, it talks about how she mis-fortunate she was to marry into a family that she didn't really like. Life was not exactly nice and she wanted to escape. Her husband didn't treat her very well, and she was treat more like a servant. She did appeal as a wife to her husband, but someone who should serve him and do whatever he commands. When she got out of the family, by telling a lie about how she would give misfortune to the the family, she escaped and married another man, she said:

"The Huangs asked only that I never tell anybody of any importance about the story of my doomed marriage" (Tan 66).  

This proves that Lindo Jong's life was not happy at all from the moment she married in . She never got the respect that she deserved and was not appreciated for what she has done. It was freedom that she felt after she left. With no more worries and a loan to carry behind her back.

"How nice it is to be that girl again, to take off my scarf, to see what is underneath and feel the lightness back into my body!" (Tan 66).

This could explain her happiness afterwards and the problems to her marriage was gone. The cycle continues on where her daughter had the same experience. She was also going to through problems with her marriage like her mother did.

     In the story of Four Directions, Waverly tells a story about her marriage that is going to be held for her and Rich. The problem is that Waverly is having a hard time persuading her mother that Rich is the person for her. Because her first marriage didn't go well because her mother criticized Marvin, her first husband. She feels that because of the criticism, her marriage was poisoned, and caused her to see only Marvin's faults. Now Waverly hopes that her realtionship with Rich will go well and not result as a disaster :

"I was afraid that some unseen speck of truth would fly into my eyes, blur what I was seeing and transform him from the divine man I thought he was into someone quite mundane, mortally wounded with tiresome habits and irritating imperfections" (Tan 173-174).

Waverly was worried that her marriage will end up like her last one and she wants to change things. She wants to persuade her mother that he is not that bad. All along Waverly thought that her mother hates Rich, but she knew about the engagement all along and was surprised about Waverly's assumption that she hated Rich.

     The stories of the mother and child includes a cycle about the problems that can occur through marriage. There includes more examples from the book, from how marriage can me a failure. Problems to these marriages are hidden and kept in the past, such as how Lindo hides that fact that she was married into a bad family and how Waverly hides that her last marriage didn't end up so well. Even though there were problems, both the mother and daughter had a happy ending and got what they want. The cycles that I discovered was marriage.