The Joy Luck Club Chapter 3

"The Red Candle" tells the tale of another of the aunties, Lindo Jong, and her marriage back in China.

It has now occurred to me that the novel seems to be recalling stories as little episodes in short snippets to gain understanding of the different characters. It seems like little weekly episodes of a show on TV.

Time to tune in to... The Joy Luck Club!

In this episode, we hear the melancholy story of a young girl's DILEMMA regarding a marriage. She does not love the man she is supposed to marry, but the matchmaker has chosen them for each other. After her family has to leave her home, the girl is left into the home of her future husband where she learns the skills necessary to be a good wife. She finds the man she is to marry to be rude and she does not care for him. She realizes though that she cannot leave the family and her parents and her own family will be disgraced if she does not marry this man. After all, her mother said to her, "'Obey your family. Do not disgrace us.'" There is really no way to argue with that. So, she is caught in the dilemma of whether she should grin and bear the horrors of life with this man and his wretched family, or leave, disgracing her family and feeling the guilt eat away at her for the rest of her life.

Not a pleasant choice either way, but she oh so cleverly finds a loophole and finds a way to both leave AND not shame her family's name. She tricks them into believing that she should leave the family.

This plot reminded me of a wonderful movie I have watched called The Fiddler on the Roof. The "matchmaker" element and the whole "tell people about a dream where your ancestors tell you that marrying a certain person is a BAD idea" are basically what I am referencing.

This video is talking about the latter. Tevye's daughter Tzeitel has told him that she wishes to marry Motel, the tailor, and that the two of them are very much in love. In order to please his wife Golde, Tevye has the genius idea to tell her of a dream where he was told that his daughter should marry Motel.

This video is the song "Matchmaker". Tevye's daughters all dream of marrying wonderful men, but Tzeitel tells them that there will never be a match that pleases them and that the matchmaker will only bring them pain and suffering.

I just thought it was really strange how the dream sequence in The Joy Luck Club was very similar to the one in The Fiddler on the Roof. Nonetheless, both of these are important developments in the lives of the young ladies in both tales.