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4 Chinese women go to America in search of better life. There they give birth to their daughters and raise them as Americans, making them use only perfect American English. These women, despite the pleasant life in America, have past that is the worst that one can imagine of. Suyuan Woo, mother of Jing-mei ��June�� Woo, leaves twin daughters during the runaway of the Chinese war. An-mei Hsu, mother of Rose Hsu Jordan, is left by her mother because she became the third concubine of a rich man. And even after she meets her mother and lives with her, An-mei��s mother kills herself for her daughter��s sake. Lindo Jong, with a daughter named Waverly Jong, has an arranged marriage. And Lastly, Lena St. Clair��s mother, Ying-ying St. Clair kills her baby boy to escape from her terrible husband. And the story goes on about the problems the mothers and daughters have between each other because of their mothers�� experiences.
There are many differences between the book and the movie of The Joy Luck Club, since the book is 288 pages long and the movie is only 2 hours long, the movie is too short to include all the stories in the movie. So, the first difference between them would be that the movie lacks of the details that is written in the book. In the book, there are a lot of descriptions about the childhood life of Waverly. The book shows the house above a Chinese bakery that they lived and how Waverly began to play chess in the first place. There is a part about Waverly��s childhood in the movie as well but it only shows about why she stops playing chess.
The second difference is that there are scenes in the book that hasn��t been included in the movie. For instance, Ying-ying��s long written story about the Moon Lady is missing. The Moon Lady story is a very important part of Ying-ying��s life since it ruined her purity. Her belief that her dream will come true if she told the Moon Lady has been destroyed by discovering that the lady wasn��t a lady at all but an ugly man in thick make-up. Her daughter��s story is left out as well. Lena��s story about her neighbor��s fight has been completely thrown out in the movie. There are more scenes that are in the book but not in the movie.
Thirdly, the order of the story is different. In the book, the characters all talk about their child life first and go towards the present as the book comes near to the end. However, in the movie, the whole story starts at a party that June is to take place of her mother Suyuan. The other stories connect to the party and from time to time at the end of the each character��s stories. So you could say the novel goes in the chronological order of the characters whereas the movie grows out of the main happening; the majung party.
Lastly, there are stories that are completely different. The most different of all, the ending of the story is different. In the movie, Lindo signs the later that she sent to the twins as Suyuan and refuges to explain in written letter that their mother had died 4 months ago. Also, June goes to China to meet her sisters alone. On the other hand, in the movie June goes with her dad to meet her father��s aunt and that her father also goes with her to meet the twins.
These differences come from one reason. The author��s purpose of writing the novel was to tell the readers the problems that are caused by the Chinese traditions, however, the movie is too short to focus on all of the problems. Instead, the movie only concentrates on the relationship between the mothers and daughters and how the Chinese families have overcome the misunderstandings between each other. The difference in what the story focuses on determines the significance of it.
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