American Rules and Chinese Faces
The Games of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11272142 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tara Fickle (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 68-88 |
| Publication date | 2014-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | MELUS Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0163-755X • E-ISSN: 1946-3170 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/melus/mlu024 |
| OpenAlex | W2147048244 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 5 |
This article revisits what arguably has remained the most celebrated and vilified Asian American novel to date: Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club (1989). Reproducing the formal structure of a game of mahjongg and using gaming tropes to dramatize the relationships between four Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-born daughters, the novel immerses its readers in the paradoxical connection between freedom and constraint through assimilation games that transform Chinese immigrant “victims” into Asian American “victors.” These games in turn allow Tan to challenge traditional forms of inter- and intragenerational affiliation and notions of kinship found in much canonical Asian American literature.
Club · Luck · Sociology · Theology · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Medicine · Music History and Culture · Philosophy · Psychology
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,18 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2015 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |