Throughout the novels The Kitchen God's Wife and The Joy Luck Club, author Amy Tan conveys the message of tradition and change. Each novel contains sections about mothers talking and relating their stories to their daughters. The daughters in The Joy Luck Club hear stories about loss and happiness, and joy and hate. Each of the four mothers tell these stories to their daughters as lessons, or offerings for their futures. They tell the stories to show how lucky their daughters have been, yet how their lives will never be the same as their own lives have been. They try to help their daughters on some level with these stories. Yet they comprehend the fact that they could never understand their mothers. The main character, Pearl, in The Kitchen God's Wife talks about her life and her mother. Pearl, and her mother Winnie, the other half of the mother/daughter pair attend a funeral as Pearl narrates. They then go to Winnie's home, as Winnie dotes on Pearl and her two daughters. Pearl's heart breaks as she notices all the small intricacies of her mother, and all the little things that her mother does to illustrate her love. As Pearl and her family drive away from her mother's house, Winnie begins to narrate, to her daughter about her life, her hardships, and her loves. Through these two novels, the five mother/daughter pairs and the perception of mother to daughter, the theme of mother daughter relationships is distinctly portrayed.

Pearl views her mother in many different ways. Often, through her mother's movements, or appearance, she will view her mother as fragile, yet strong and knowing, "...I imagine my mother's parchment like skin, furiously pulling out stray leaves, tucking in sharp ends of wire, inserting each flower into its proper place." (Tan, 19) "She is wearing a new blue dress she made herself-- in fact, designed herself...It makes my mother's thin body look waiflike." (Tan, 39). Yet, with even more consistency, she will view her mother with irritancy or sadness. "On the surface, Winnie's ways are more irritating than mysterious to the daughter." (Yglesias) Even in the first sentence the reader lays eyes on, Pearl demonstrates these grievances she harbors, "Whenever my mother talks to me, she begins the conversation as if we were already in the middle of an argument." (Tan, 3) and further in her segments of the novel, she indicates quite a few "problems" she has with her mother. Similarly, Tan also has these problems with her mother "Tan felt that she had disappointed her mother when she dropped out of medical school..."(Feng) "I secretly worried that I had missed better opportunities. My mother had put those thoughts in my head." (Tan, 8) "To this day, it drives me crazy, listening to her various hypothesis, the way religion, medicine and superstition all merge with her own beliefs." (Tan, 27) Yet, sadly, Pearl also says that "there's a lot I don't know about my mother." (Tan, 53) Through these silent criticisms of her mother, Pearl "assigns herself a critical perspective on her mother's life."(Yglesias)

The daughters relate to readers that their perceptions of their mother's traditions and culture, even though those perceptions might be different than the ones the mothers hoped toconvey, have helped them come to many realizations about themselves.[They] try to lead their contemporary lives as lawyers and architect with their lovers and husbands, each coming to experience the fierce grief of their mother's attachment to them. (Painter) These experiences are both positive and negative. The mothers in these stories [also] expect more of their daughters than they can ever realize, their ambitions for them are lavish beyond all hope...(Painter) Jing-Mei Woo tells the story of how her mother wanted her to be the next Shirley Temple. "My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open a restaurant...You could become instantly famous.

‘Of course you can be prodigy, too," my mother told me..."you watch," and I would see Shirley [Temple] tapping her feet, or singing a sailor song, or pursing her lips into a very round O..."You watch," said my mother as Shirley's eyes flooded with tears. "You already know how. Don't need talent for crying!"(Tan, 141-142) Through this, and other attempts at making little Jing-Mei famous, such as cutting her hair, getting her a piano, and forcing her to play it, Jing-Mei realizes that "...unlike my mother, I did not believe that I could be anything I wanted to be. I could only be me."(Tan, 154) Amy Tan realized that all she could be was herself as well, after quitting piano lessons at a young age.(DIScovering Authors, GaleNet)

The mothers in The Joy Luck Club through the perceptions of their daughters, do not want to realize what is going on around them. They would rather let their belief of magic and Feng Shui, ghosts, ancestors and tradition pervade their lives...(Painter) than accept the fact that their daughters are growing up in a culture so different from their own. Lindo Jong, says to her daughter, Waverly- "I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents' promise. This means nothing to you because to you, promises mean nothing. A daughter can promise to come to dinner, but if she has a headache, a traffic jam, if she wants to watch a favorite movie on T.V., she no longer has a promise."(Tan, 42) Ying Ying St.Clair remarks- "...because I remained quiet for so long, now my daughter does not hear me. She sits by her fancy swimming pool and hears only her Sony Walkman, her cordless phone, her big, important husband asking her why they have charcoal and no lighter fluid."(Tan, 64) Yet, these women tell their own stories; at the center of every tale is the ferocious love between mother and daughter. (Gates) Even though their daughters are "...inside...all American made."(Tan, 289) The love devoted from mother to daughter is irreplaceable and unbridled.

Winnie, in The Kitchen God's Wife silently criticizes her daughter as well, but unlike most of the mothers in The Joy Luck Club, she sometimes voices these criticisms to her daughter. Through these criticisms, Winnie tries to hide her vulnerabilities and weaknesses to her daughter, afraid that she will pass these weaknesses on to her daughter, and that her daughter, her only daughter will possess the traits that she loathes about herself. Most of Winnie's comments are of the normal, motherly kind. When searching through Pearl's old room, she finds a box, "Inside the box I found...tampons, which I warned her not to use, blue eye makeup, which I also warned her not to use."(Tan, 96) but, other remarks that Winnie cannot help but say emotionally damage Pearl, "Ai-ya! If you can't cry, I make you cry." And she slapped me again and again. " Cry! Cry!" she wailed crazily...Finally, realizing what she had done, my mother bit the back of her hand and mumbled something in Chinese."(Tan, 48) After this, at her father's funeral, Pearl would not cry in front of her mother. Pearls emotions, her stubbornness and led from the incident, her unwillingness to comply to what her mother wanted her to do, wreak havoc on her emotions.

What her mother thought was only natural and healthy for her and would help, only hurt Pearl. Mother and daughter criticize each other hoping that they will help, not hurt each other, and "The novel is the working out of the mysteries between the two." (Yglesias)

The mothers of The Joy Luck Club have stories to offer to their daughters An-Mei Hsu relates the story of her mother, a lowly concubine, who committed suicide to save the life of her own daughter. In reality, Amy Tan's grandmother was this woman who gave her own life for the life of her beloved daughter. (Feng) Suyuan Woo lost her two precious twin baby girls during the war in China, having to leave them on the side of the road, rather than them enduring the pain of seeing her die. Tan's mother had to go through the same pain of leaving three of her babies in China. (DIScovering authors modules) Lindo Jong lost her freedom after having her mother plan an arranged marriage into a mentally abusive family. Her mother had to arrange a marriage to keep Lindo under a warm roof, and in clothing. The entire time Lindo was home, her mother would refer to her as Huang-Taitai's daughter, knowing that she had already given her up and could not become attached or "keep" her. These stories are offered to break down the perceptions that the daughters have of their mothers, open themselves up to new experiences and encounters with their daughters.

Winnie offers the story of her hardships and trials in China to Pearl to make Pearl's perception of her mother complete. "Winnie's life is recounted...for the understandings of her daughter Pearl."(Yglesias) The story of Winnie's life is one that no one person should ever have to endure. " In speaking her bitterness, the mother's tale evokes an entire female generation's excruciating trials." (Yglesias) and is also a waking to Pearl of what her mother's life was like. Winnie knows that she had held back too long, "I was waiting for the right moment." (Tan, 215) yet, is still uncertain of how the story will hold over. Therefore, throughout the story, Winnie asks many questions of her daughter, such as "You tell me if this was my fault." (Tan, 297) "Tell me...could you forgive?" (Tan, 338) "What do you see? What is still there?" (Tan, 398) "Can you imagine how I was feeling?" (Tan, 491) these questions, meant to preserve her daughter's positive images of her mother are woven throughout. These reinforcements only enhance the intensity of Winnie's story as related to Pearl. Winnie's entire story centers around the way a man named Wen-Fu controlled and almost ruined her life through his bad decisions and destructive temper. Through this story Pearl " realizes a greater understanding of her mothers background in China." (Gale Research) and actually does gain a full and complete perspective of her mother. Thus she gains a further understanding of who she is and where she is coming from. Through Pearl's reaction to the story, the reader is able to fathom the multitude of emotions, jubilation and sorrow in a package of confusion that she goes through in the moments after her mother's story.

Both mothers and daughters have perceptions of each other that break their hearts. In some cases, the "consequence is...an alienation filled with an estranged, anguished love."(Painter) In The Joy Luck Club, Waverly sees her mother as always wishing her to be perfect. She tells the story in which she takes her mother, Lindo Jong to a beauty salon. Waverly suggests to the ‘hip, fashionable, expensive, hard-to-book' hairdresser that she wants it dyed "not this hideous purple-black, like from a bottle.... my mother does it herself." Waverly explains to the barber. Her mother replies by saying why should she have someone else do it, when she could get the same from a bottle. No one notices it. Waverly glares at her mother. Although Waverly has many problems with her mother, another problem being, from the first half of the book, was her mother's seemingly foolish pride. Lindo walks the street with Life magazine, flattened on her chest, proudly displaying to anyone within eye and earshot that her daughter won because she told her to win with her horse. Waverly can't take this anymore; she screams "Why don't you play chess!"(Tan, 101)Her mother looks at her, astonished. While in the middle of the staring match with her mother, she sensed the magnitude of emotions her mother was feeling, and ran, in fear of what she might have done, gone against her mother and what she had been taught. The culture clash began.

Yet, through all of this, Waverly realizes that her mother, and the slightest thing her mother says or does against her, or what she wants to do, affects her. She cries-"You have complete control over me!" In the salon, they admire each other in the mirror, their two faces becoming the same face, as they realize they are the same person. They have learned massive amounts from each other. Lindo strives to make her daughter the best by criticizing her, while Waverly strives to be the best through being ‘perfect', and living up to these criticisms. However, in the end, mother and daughter end up meeting each other halfway, and become one. Pearl, on the other hand was not so fortunate. She is not able to repair the years of estrangement and false perceptions so easily. Pearl fears that she has pushed her mother away, while Winnie feels as if she does not know this person who is her daughter. Pearl, while staying at her mother's house, tells her that she is fine, while all Winnie wants to do is protect her, her precious daughter Pearl.

" "Did you bring your toothbrush?" my mother calls to us through our closed door. "Brush your teeth already?"

"Got ‘em!" Phil calls back. "They're brushed!"

"Plenty...Good night!" he calls, and turns off the light. It is quiet for about five seconds.

"Too cold? Heater can be turned up."

"Ma, we're fine," I say with a little too much irritation. And then I say, a little more gently this time, "Don't worry. Go to bed."

I hold my breath, there is only silence. And finally, I hear her slippers slowly padding down the hallway, each soft shuffle breaking my heart." (Tan, 38)

Pearl realizes that her mother does not want to let go of her, but she must, because Pearl herself is a mother now, and is fully capable of taking care of herself. Yet, Winnie will not let go of her daughter, for it is impossible for her to let go of her motherly instincts. She can not let go of the daughter she once knew, yet also yearns to find out more about her. Upon finding a ‘secrets box' in Pearl's room, Winnie debates over whether or not to open it. "What was inside? What hurts and disappointments? And if I opened the box and found a stranger, what then? What if this daughter inside the box was nothing like the one I had imagined I had raised?" (Tan, 96) this debate goes on for some time, before Winnie finally decides to open the box. "I was happy and sad all at once, the way you feel when you listen to old songs you had almost forgotten. And you can only weep that each note is already gone the moment you hear it, before you can say, "How true! How true this was!" (Tan, 97) The opening of the box only confirms what Winnie had thought about her daughter. Winnie, by opening the box, proved to herself that the daughter of hers was all she expected and possibly even more. This leads Winnie to want to tell Pearl about herself, her trials in China, and her trials with Wen-Fu. Because now, Winnie has the strength, taken indirectly from her daughter to deal with the pain of telling her the story that she must tell her.

Winnie and Pearl, mother and daughter, are alike in many aspects as well. Many times, one or the other will say how alike they are in many facets of their personas. "I was thinking [about Pearl's tendency to shrug situations off ]...This is how she is. This is how I am."(Tan, 95) This, along with the other comments on how similar they are, lead the reader to realize, that maybe these two, mother and daughter are alike. This story helps them(Winnie and Pearl) to realize that they have taught each other many valuable lessons, and that, ultimately they have benefitted and helped each other. Sadly enough, they can not recognize this in each other, because the last thing they would search for would be their similarities. Yet, the experience of the telling of Winnie's story lets Pearl, and her mother realize that these coinciding aspects of their personalities only bring them considerably closer. "Tan's moving story demonstrates that shared afflictions can create ties between people closer than blood relationships..."(Solomon)

Tan weaves the theme of mother and daughter relationships thorought each of these novels, along with the many perceptions that mother and daughter hold of each other. These perceptions hide secrets, and conceal relationships that could be. Yet, truthfully Tan allows her characters to unveil the secrets that they have held back for so long. The unveiling of these secrets help begin to ‘tear down' some of the false perceptions, and put up truthful, positive perceptions that help the mothers and daughters. Tan conveys that perceptions either destroy or enhance the fragile, ever priceless relationship between mother and daughter. Even though Tan relates the mother daughter perceptions as a part of cultural clashes, she also portrays it as something deeper. Mother daughter perceptions take place in all mother daughter relationships and, through each of her characters, each type of relationship is conveyed, and threading the relationships together is one common thread: The love between mother and daughter, and the perceptions that can either be exceedingly beneficial, or detrimental to the bond.