Cycle of Jewelry

In The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, she incorporated many cyclical elements into the novel. There's other hidden cyclical elements in the story that don't involve the structure of the book, how it is written from the view point of the mothers, then from the daughters views, their views again, then the mothers again, or how the daughters had difficulties with their mothers, or how most of them married a white husband (eg. Ted, Harold, Rich, and one of the mothers married Clifford, also white).

The mothers in The Joy Luck Club gave their daughters jewelry, ranging from gems to gold to jade. When they gave their daughters the jewelry, it was often as a symbol of love, to prove to them that they were special, and worthy and mature enough to receive the precious keepsakes.

In The Red Candle, told from Lindo Jong, a mother's point of view, her mother gave her a necklace before she left her with Huang Taitai.

"The dowry was enough, more than enough, said my father. But he could not stop my mother from giving me her chang, a necklace made out of a tablet of red jade" (53).

Lindo's mother left her the necklace as a last token and symbol of her love for her, and to give her the necklace, somewhat as a placeholder for her mother's presence in her life, even though she had to leave her.

Rose Hsu Jordan watched her mother give away her ring to Bing in Half and Half, when he drowned in the sea, and she could not find him. After hours of searching, the mother slowly came to the realization that they would not be able to find Bing, and threw the ring into the water.

"...she opened her fist. In her palm was a ring of watery blue sapphire, a gift from her mother, who had died many years before...She threw the ring into the water" (129).

 After Bing fell and drowned in the water, never to be found, An-Mei Hsu threw the sapphires as an offering, believing that the ring would make the Coiling Dragon forget Bing.

In Best Quality, Jing-Mei Woo tells of the time when her mother gave her a jade pendant on a gold chain after a crab dinner celebrating Chinese New Year. The meal had not gone as well as expected, and after, when Jing-Mei was talking to her mother, Suyan, when she gave her the jade necklace.

"...she unhooked the clasp of her gold necklace and took it off, wadding the chain and the jade pendant in her palm. She grabbed my hand and put the necklace in my palm, then shut my fingers around it...I looked at the necklace, the pendant with the light green jade" (208).

Suyan wanted to give the necklace to Jing-Mei, because she had waited a long time before she gave her the necklace, wanting to give it to her for a long time, and when she gave it to her, she understood that Jing-Mei wound understand her meaning, as the necklace was her "life's importance." She wanted to show Jing-Mei that she loved her, and supported her, regardless of the mean, degrading and insulting comments that Waverly said.

In the last story, A Pair of Tickets, told from Jing-Mei Woo's point of view again, but speaking namely about her mothers past experience with her first two daughters, she speaks of the recollection of her father telling her  the story of how her mother left her two daughters along the road with jewelry, money, and photos.

"When the road grew quiet, she tore open the lining of her dress, and stuffed jewelry under the shirt of one baby, and money under the other" (282).

Suyan Woo, the mother, put jewelry into the shirt of one baby, because she loved them, and although she had to leave them since she had lost all strength to carry them any farther, she left the money and jewelry as a symbol of her love, and for whoever who found the two daughters to use to raise them, and hopefully cover some costs.