Analysis Of Amy Tan s The Joy Luck Club, Homer s Odyssey

Elbert Hubbard once said â€Å"Our desires always disappoint us; for though we meet with something that. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, Homer’s The Odyssey translated by Robert Fagles, and Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, hope and expectation illustrate the thin line between success and utter destruction in which hope and expectation are found. Characters such as Junior, and Penelope have begun to master the art of hope, while characters such as June have people around her that lower her standards. Success is found in a perfect happy medium where the people that are surrounding the main character raise the standards of life. Through the analysis of a multitude of characters, it is prominent that when†¦show more content†¦Juniors parents were surrounded by the unsupportive. Because of this they never had the chance to come close to even realizing what sort of dreams they can set for themselves. Even if they found the cor rect expectation for themselves it was ignored because â€Å"nobody paid attention to their dreams†. This is exemplified by Junior’s family tree being stated as â€Å"poor people who came from poor people, all the way back to the very first poor people† (Alexie 11). When a family’s failure begins to become a dynasty, the only way for it to be avoided is for expectation to be seen and not completely ignored. Family can do many great things, like show love and care for others, but one thing that the family should not be responsible for is setting expectations. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, June deals with the constant struggle of being overpowered by the rest of her family, always being told what to do and not having the chance to develop her own expectations. When her mother says â€Å"Only two kinds of daughters. Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter!† (Tan 142), Suyuan sets herself up to be a controlling mother. If June is not thinking for herself, she will enter the real world and be get kicked to the ground and will not have a chance to get back up. We can see that at the end of the book June has been a completely