Conflict, Western Culture V.S Eastern Culture
In ˇ§The Joy Luck Clubˇ¨, the director, Wayne Wang explores the different mother-daughter relationships between the characters, and at a lower level, relationships between friends, lovers, and even enemies. The mother-daughter relationships are most likely different aspects of the author, Tan's relationship with her mother, and perhaps some parts are entirely figments of her imagination. In this movie, she presents the conflicting views and the stories of both sides, providing the audience--and ultimately, the characters--with an understanding of the mentalities of both mother and daughter, and why each one is the way she is. The movie is organized into four sections as the original book did, two devoted to the mothers and two devoted to the daughters, with the exception of June. The first section, logically, is about the mothers' childhoods in China, the period of time during which their personalities were molded, giving the audience a better sense of their "true" selves, since later in the movie the daughters view their mothers in a different and unflattering light. Wang does this so the audience can see the stories behind both sides and so as not to judge either side unfairly.