Comparative Analysis of Themes in Tan's 'The Joy Luck Club' Film

This essay provides a comparative analysis of Amy Tan's novel "The Joy Luck Club" and its 1993 film adaptation, examining the film's success in portraying the novel's essential themes. It explores the depiction of characters, the challenges of adapting novels into films due to time constraints, and major themes such as immigration, cultural identity, and the struggle for existence. While the film effectively presents some themes, it falls short in capturing the novel's expressive style and detailed narratives, particularly concerning the past lives of the characters. The essay highlights specific instances where the film deviates from the novel, affecting the depth of thematic representation. It concludes that while the film makes a commendable effort, it doesn't fully replicate the novel's profound exploration of mother-daughter relationships, the experiences of Chinese immigrant women, and the influence of cultural traditions.

Running head: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS: THE JOY LUCK CLUB
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS: THE JOY LUCK CLUB
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Author Note

1COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS: THE JOY LUCK CLUB
The essay focuses on the comparative understanding of the book “The Joy Luck Club” of
1989 and the movie adaptation of the same name if 1993. The Joy Luck club is a novel by Amy
Tan that traces the lives of four Chinese American families that are essentially immigrants. It is a
story that revolves around three mothers and their four daughters. One of the mothers die before
the beginning of the novel. The game of Mahjong plays an interesting part in the novel as the Joy
Luck Club is opened for playing the game. The principal characters take part in the game while
discussing their stories that become the narratives of the plot. The book consists of four parts that
are in turn divided into four parts each just like the game structure of mahjong. The novel was
later adapted into a film. The thesis statement being considered is whether the film has been
successful in bringing forward the essential themes that have been discussed in the text of the
novel (Borhan and Anushiravani 111).
The exploration of the depiction of characters can help to further develop how much the
movie representation has been able to live up to the standards of the novel. The main issues that
are faced when novel are adapted for films is connected with the time factor. Novels often tend
to be more accurate and detailed in their description of the aspects of the plots and the characters
(Liu). However, in films the entirety of the novels have to be compressed into a story that is to be
shown in much lesser time. Some of the major themes that are explored through the book Joy
Luck Club are struggle for existence in an unknown country, immigration and settlement from
the perspectives of women and retracing the past lives of the characters (Zhu). The film
adaptation of the novel has been able to put forward some of the essential themes of the novel.
However, the film has to a large extent been unable to capture the style of the text. The
expression of the book has not been effectively portrayed through the film.

2COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS: THE JOY LUCK CLUB
The film adaptation of the novel has left out certain chapters of the novel. This has
affected the film’s expression of the themes of the novel to a certain extent. The film does not
consider some of the larger narratives that provide a deeper understanding of the past lives of the
characters. It is to be remembered that tracing the past or the Chinese roots of the characters is a
theme that is essential to the progress of the story. An example can be given of the same in case
of the husband of Ying-Ying Claire. The film does not show how he dies. Moreover, the story
related to Ying-Ying aborting her baby has been changed. The film shows that she drowns her
baby after birth rather than aborting her baby. Although this does not greatly affect the theme of
the book that is represented through the movie, it does create a great difference between the
expressive narrative style of the novel and the fast paced progress of the film. The brutality of
life in China for women as a theme has been portrayed effectively by the film (Guo). However,
the film fails to portray the expressive and detailed use of language in the novel. The film also
somewhat skips the structural presentation of the story that is evident from the story. The film on
the other hand separates the 4 chapters directly. The separation is done on the basis of Lindo and
Waverly Jong, Lena St. Clair and Ying-Ying, Rose Hsu and An-Mei and Suyuan and June Woo.
It can be said that the presentation of themes in the book is complex and requires great
effort to be transferred to a film adaptation. The audio-visual presentation of the film is done in a
way so as to provide the audience with a sense of antiquity. A large part of the movie is based in
flashbacks. This is largely due to the fact that the movie deals with historic themes. The audio-
visual presentation of the film has given more prominence to the historic aspects of the novel.
Although the historic themes of the novel are very much parts of the theme, the movie has
prolonged the depiction of history. This somewhat affects the portrayal of other essential themes
of the novel. The struggle for existence of Chinese women in the United States and the modern

3COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS: THE JOY LUCK CLUB
lives of the new generation of Chinese-American youth are themes that could have been more
thoroughly portrayed by the movie. The written language of the novel is much more elaborate
and expressive given the fact that the stories of all four of the mothers are very vividly provided.
The evaluative features of the novel in regards to the type of lives that Chinese immigrants,
especially women endured in the difficult times have been portrayed in the film. However, the
film lacks the necessary depth that can be seen in the language that has been used in the novel.
As mentioned previously, the time that was needed to incorporate all the aspects of the
novel into the film adaptation was huge. Hence, it became important that certain parts of the
novel had to be left out. However, the major factors that affects the presentation of the themes
through the film is that some of the parts that were not included were important in the novel. The
book provides the various superstitions of the Chinese women as the reason behind their thinking
concerning the lives and well-beings of their daughters. This is a theme that is much ignored by
the film adaptation of the novel. At the beginning of the novel it is said “my mother recognized
the numbness in these women’s faces. And she saw how quickly their eyes moved when she told
them her idea for Joy Luck Club” (Tan). The words portray the need that emerged for Chinese
women to socialize in the country where they were just new. This was a theme that although was
portrayed somehow in the novel, gets somewhat lost in the later part of the film.
The above mentioned factors account for the changes that have been observed in the film
adaptation of the novel. It can be said that the novel fails to completely emulate the novel. It is
considered that the large novel cannot essentially be converted in a novel but some of the major
underlying aspects are ignored in the process. The film adaptation of The Joy Luck Club has been
effective towards bringing out many of the principal themes of the novel. However, the story has
not been well knit in the film adaptation. This leads to some significant issues with regards to

4COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS: THE JOY LUCK CLUB
how far the audio-visual aspects of the film have been able to portray the realistic depiction that
the novel has given of the struggles of the Chinese immigrant women. The novel aptly describes
the issues that have affected the lives of Chinese women in the homeland as well as in the United
States (Liu). The shared themes of the novel and the book remain same to a certain extent.
However, the book becomes more of a depiction of historic events related to the stories of the
older generation of Chinese American women and does not deeply identify the other important
themes. The text of the novel also describes the relationship that grows between the mothers and
the daughters. This is supported by the more profound description and narratives concerning the
journeys that the mothers had to endure (Wang 120). The ways in which the relationships
between the mothers and the daughters grew is also the point of great emphasis in the novel. It is
important to note that the novel touches on more aspects of the stories than the film is able to.
The outline of the themes are however significantly provided in the film. In essence the film
remains a good effort despite not being able to reproduce a major part of the story.
Conclusively, it can be said that the film adaptation of the novel has been able to portray
various themes that were connected with the original texts. The significant issues however were
seen in regards to the deeper themes of the texts like development of the mother daughter
relationships, camaraderie between the displaced Chinese women and the struggle to lead the
American life under the influence of religion were not greatly portrayed through the film. There
hence remains some essential issues with regard to how the novel was actually transferred into
the audio-visual medium. The movie could have been somewhat better planned to incorporate
more themes related to the novel.

5COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS: THE JOY LUCK CLUB
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