The Joy Luck Club
Beginning of paper
Fasting of the Heart: Mother-Tradition and
Sacred Systems in Amy Tan's
"Concentrate your will. Hear not with your ears
but with your mind; not with your mind, but with
your spirit . . . blank, passively responsive to
externals. In such open receptivity only can Tao
abide. And in that open receptiv ....
Middle of paper
.... significant and may point to the invisible core of life. Tan may weave elements of Taoism into the narrative to locate the "invisible core" of Chinese women's culture, of the immigrant family--and of the novel itself--within apparent conflicts or ambiguities. Tan's use of Confucianism may reveal her hypothesis of how a women's version of that patriarchal ethico-moral-ritual tradition might be passed down from mother to daughter and carried to America. Just as in the Confucian ritual system, ve ....
------------------
Word count: 5044
Page count: 19 (approximately 250 words per page)
