SOURCE: “Feng Shui, Astrology, and the Five Elements: Traditional Chinese Belief in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club,” in MELUS, Summer, 1999, pp. 125–45.

In the following essay, Hamilton demonstrates how Tan uses the concepts of feng shui, astrology, and the Five Elements to enhance the characters in The Joy Luck Club.

A persistent thematic concern in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club is the quest for identity. Tan represents the discovery process as arduous and fraught with peril. Each of the eight main characters faces the task of defining herself in the midst of great personal loss or interpersonal conflict. Lindo Jong recalls in “The Red Candle” that her early marriage into a family that did not want her shaped her character and caused her to vow never to forget who she was. Ying-ying St. Clair's story “Waiting between the Trees” chronicles how betrayal, loss, and displacement caused her...