was not a symbol for failure, but for hope. The swan grew up to be more than it was expected to be and became "too beautiful to eat" (3). But when it was taken away, the only thing that was left was a feather, a symbol of something that was meant to be nothing but became more. It was a symbol for the mothers; it was what they wanted their children to become, more then what they were in China. The attitudes of the daughters changed as the girls matured and came to realize that their mothers weren't so different all. The relationships between the mothers and daughters were very conflictive. They reflected a great deal of the way in which mothers act towards their daughters and vice versa. The book shows a very realistic view of the mother and daughter relationships in our modern world by depicting the mothers living through their daughters.
             Through the relationship between Suyuan and her daughter, Amy Tan clearly suggests Chinese mothers rely on success to establish status. Suyuan was a strong and willful woman who refused to focus on her hardships. Instead, she struggles to create happiness and success where she finds it lacking. It is with this mentality that she creates the original Joy Luck Club while awaiting the Japanese invasion of China in Kweilin. "The Joy Luck Club, where we feasted, we laughed, we played games, lost and won, we told the best stories. And each week, we could hope to be lucky. That hope was our only joy" (12). Her sense of the power of will could at times cause problems, such as when Suyuan believes that her daughter, Jing-mei could become a child prodigy if only she could locate her talent and nurture it well enough. This created resentment and rebellion in Jing-mei. Suyuan shared many characteristics with her fellow mothers in the Joy Luck Club: fierce love for her daughter, often expressed as criticism; a distress at her daughter's desire to shake off her Chinese identity in f...