Mother-Daughter Relationships in The Joy Luck ClubIn The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan explores mother-daughter relationships and, on a lower level, the relationships between friends, lovers, and even enemies. The mother-daughter relationships are most likely different aspects of Tan's relationship with her mother, and perhaps some parts are entirely a figment of her imagination. In this book, she presents the conflicting viewpoints and stories from both sides, providing the reader – and ultimately the characters – with an understanding of the mother's and daughter's mindsets, and why each is the way they are. The book is organized into four sections, two devoted to mothers and two devoted to daughters, with the exception of June. The first section, logically, focuses on the mothers' childhoods in China, the period during which their personalities were shaped, giving the reader a better sense of themselves, since later in the book the daughters see their mother as such. a different and unflattering light. Tan does this so the reader can see the stories behind both sides and to not judge either side unfairly. This section, entitled Feathers of a Thousand Miles, is aptly named, since it describes the heritage of mothers in China, a heritage that they wanted to leave to their daughters, as the little story at the beginning signifies. For many years, mothers did not tell their daughters their stories until they were sure that their rebellious offspring would listen, and by then it is almost too late to impress upon them the legacy that their mothers left behind long ago when they left China. The second and third sections focus on the girls' lives, and the vignettes in each section trace the growth and development of their personalities. Through the daughters' eyes, we can also see the continuation of the mothers' stories of how they learned to get by in America. In these sections, Amy Tan explores the difficulties of growing up as a Chinese-American and the problems of assimilation in modern society. Chinese-American daughters do their best to become "Americanized" while shedding their heritage while their mothers look on in dismay. Social pressures to become like everyone else and not be different are what motivate girls to feel resentment towards their nationality. This was a bigger problem for Chinese-American girls growing up in the 1950s, at a time when it was not well accepted to be of "ethnic" background. »..