Story in The Joy Luck Club and Mother Journeys"Beginning with Gussie," Maxine Kumin's short story from the anthology Mother Journeys, has a similar central theme to the one in The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan: The need to transfer stories from mother to daughter. These two works present many similarities, despite being tales of very different cultural traditions. Is cultural difference important? Or do these works reflect a universal truth about storytelling between mothers and daughters? First of all, what are the similarities and differences between these works? Like Jing-mei Woo, Rebecca doesn't learn the full story of her mother's past until her mother dies. Both mothers' pasts involve children born before the daughter to whom the story is told; these previous children were left behind due to the circumstances the mother was in at the time. In both cases, the stories are told by others who want the daughter to understand her mother more fully; both stories seem to give the daughter a better understanding of herself and her mother. Storytelling may be even more central to The Joy Luck Club, with the stories told as lessons throughout the daughters' young lives. But "Beginning with Gussie" also demonstrates that daughters know about their mothers' past experiences: Tweedie knows the history of her mother and father's romance; Rebecca knows her parents' history although she does not learn her mother's full history until her mother's death. Another similarity is that the reason why Gussie tells his story to his niece Tweedie is similar to the reason why Ying-Ying decides to tell it to him. story to daughter Lena: both are worried about the choices their daughter/granddaughter is making, choices that they see as too similar to their own past mistakes. Gussie concludes his story to his granddaughter with "And so, Tweedie, while I cannot applaud the fact that you have relived my story, I am profoundly happy to think that my genes have been passed down. Modified, expanded, undoubtedly improved." . (Mother 274, in Mother Journeys) Ying-Ying thinks to herself, as she decides to tell the story of her past to Lena, "How can I leave this world without leaving my spirit to her? So this is what I will do. .