Every mother-daughter relationship presents some complications, but overall the relationship is based primarily on either concern and warmth or brutal coldness. Even seemingly unimportant encounters can show the root behaviors of the relationship. Both Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom and Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan focus on specific mother-daughter relationships centering around music, but they detail distinctly different types of relationships. The authors’ tones in each piece allow the author to convey the relationship in different ways. In Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom by Amy Chua, Amy Chua uses an ardent with some annoyance tone with slight disagreement and frustration, while in Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club, Tan uses a hostile and hateful…show more content… As the girl tirelessly plays the violin, her mother’s presence irritates her and her irritation annoys Chua. “‘I’m not thinking anything,’ I [Chua] said indignantly” resonates through the room as Lulu plays her violin (Chua 47-48). Amy Chua loves the child, but the argument and struggles they have at this moment cause her to view the situation “indignantly”. The relationship is overall loving, but like all relationships, it has its issues. Chua also uses words like “Mommy” to show the warmness of the relationship. Despite the caring undertone, Chua does present some irony. As Lulu plays her violin, Amy Chua shouts, “RELAX!”, making the situation more tense and harder for Lulu to relax. Overall, the tone Chua uses is caring, but tension presents itself through the disagreement. The relationship is close, thus allowing them to become annoyed with each…show more content… The distinct tones differ because of a lesson that one mother, Chua, knows and the other does not. In Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom, Chua holds back and allows her daughter to remain in a peaceful state because she knows that “mashing is what makes the horrible scratchy sound” (Chua 47-48). Amy Chua refuses to pusher her daughter towards the “horrible” anger and hate and even pretends to not be “thinking anything” (Chua 47-48). On the other hand, Amy Tan’s mother takes the relationship to the breaking point by “mashing” the daughter. Then, the “scratchy sound” comes; Tan screams, “I wish I were dead” (Tan 141-142). Tan recalls her memory with hostility even many years later in Joy Luck Club since her mother pushed her too far. Pushing a daughter until she hates it takes the mother-daughter relationship towards hate and removes any evidences of care as seen in the annoyed, but overall caring tone of Battle Hymn of the TIger Mom by Amy Chua and the hostile tone of Tan’s Joy Luck
