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The Rules of the Game by Amy Tan
In "The Rules of the Game," a short story about a young Chinese-American girl, Waverly Jong, embarks journey to become a chess master. Waverly's mother believes she is a key component during this journey. Even though the mother actually has no true role in Waverly's adventure, she continues to believe it is her as the one who is succeeding. This belief is a necessity for Waverly's mother because she has nothing for herself. Waverly's mother has to live through her daughter because of her own lack of success.
Waverly's family is below the poverty level. They live in a flat above a pastry shop in Chinatown, and the Christmas presents she received are from people just giving old possessions away. The chess set that her two brothers receives is even missing two pieces. Waverly's mother first shows her overbearing pride when she tells the brothers to throw the chessboard away because it is just a pity gift that some Americans just want to throw away. "She not want it. We not want it,' she said, tossing her head stiffly to the side with a tight proud smile" (161). The mother is just ignorant sometimes. She is ignorant because she has to show others she has dignity and pride. Waverly's mother needs to do this because deep down she actually has none at all. Many times when people do not have something, they pretend that they really do possess a lot of something. Waverly's mother is so ashamed about her lack of pride and dignity, she uses her position of power to portray to her children that she did. She uses her children to make her feel better about herself. Waverly's mother is ashamed of how she lived a life of poverty and, the absence of purpose and success in her life. The worst parts about this are her lack of remorse and the despicable abuse of power within her own household. Waverly's mother unveils this aspect of her character throughout Waverly' journey to become a chess master.
Once Waverly begins to become a chess master, the mother is entering unchartered waters. There is a source of success, something that she has never experienced before. Waverly's mother has this sick and twisted belief that it is herself instead of Waverly as the true source of success.
...e on her part. Throughout the story, the Mother is portrayed as the dominant figure, which resembled the amount of say that the father and children had on matters. Together, the Father, James, and David strived to maintain equality by helping with the chickens and taking care of Scott; however, despite the effort that they had put in, the Mother refused to be persuaded that Scott was of any value and therefore she felt that selling him would be most beneficial. The Mother’s persona is unsympathetic as she lacks respect and a heart towards her family members. Since the Mother never showed equality, her character had unraveled into the creation of a negative atmosphere in which her family is now cemented in. For the Father, David and James, it is only now the memories of Scott that will hold their bond together.
In today’s society you either have to work hard to live a good life, or just inherit a lump sum of cash, which is probably never going to happen. So instead a person has to work a usual nine to five just to put food on the table for their families, and in many cases that is not even enough. In the article, “Why We Work” by Andrew Curry, Curry examines the complexities of work and touches on the reasons why many workers feel unsatisfied with their jobs. Barbara Ehrenreich writes an essay called, “Serving in Florida” which is about the overlooked life of being a server and the struggles of working off low minimum wages. Curry’s standpoint on jobs is that workers are not satisfied, the job takes control of their whole life, and workers spend
The mother is a selfish and stubborn woman. Raised a certain way and never falters from it. She neglects help, oppresses education and persuades people to be what she wants or she will cut them out of her life completely. Her own morals out-weight every other family member’s wants and choices. Her influence and discipline brought every member of the family’s future to serious-danger to care to her wants. She is everything a good mother isn’t and is blind with her own morals. Her stubbornness towards change and education caused the families state of desperation. The realization shown through the story is the family would be better off without a mother to anchor them down.
The children also argue with their mother often. The children think that their mother, with no doubt, will be perfect. They idealize their mothers as angel who will save them from all their problems, which the mothers actually never do. The children get angry at their false hopes and realize that their mothers aren’t going to...
Silver Linings Playbooks tells the story of Pat Solitano Jr. (played by Bradley Cooper), a high school teacher diagnosed with bipolar disorder who is trying to get his life back together. The movie opens as Pat is released from a psychiatric hospital after eight months of treatment and moves back in with his parents. He is determined to get back together with his wife, Nikki, despite all the signs that say she does not want to be with him - such as the restraining order she filed against him. Pat meets recently widowed Tiffany Maxwell (played by Jennifer Lawrence), who is suffering from depression and overcoming a sex addiction that ensued from the death of her husband. Tiffany offers to help deliver Pat’s letters to Nikki if he enters a dance competition with her. As the movie goes on, Pat and Tiffany’s relationship progresses and they learn to cope with their issues.
After her diagnosis of chronic kidney failure in 2004, psychiatrist Sally Satel lingered in the uncertainty of transplant lists for an entire year, until she finally fell into luck, and received her long-awaited kidney. “Death’s Waiting List”, published on the 5th of May 2006, was the aftermath of Satel’s dreadful experience. The article presents a crucial argument against the current transplant list systems and offers alternative solutions that may or may not be of practicality and reason. Satel’s text handles such a topic at a time where organ availability has never been more demanded, due to the continuous deterioration of the public health. With novel epidemics surfacing everyday, endless carcinogens closing in on our everyday lives, leaving no organ uninflected, and to that, many are suffering, and many more are in desperate request for a new organ, for a renewed chance. Overall, “Death’s Waiting List” follows a slightly bias line of reasoning, with several underlying presumptions that are not necessarily well substantiated.
Tan explained the feelings of Waverly through an important symbolic imaginary chess game as she wrote, “My white pieces screamed as they scurried and fell off the board one by one. As her men drew closer to my edge, I felt myself growing light” (508). This showed how Waverly felt about the relationship with her mother and how she was losing the battle. The conflicts were important especially to the theme, for the conflicts shown where the lack of understanding came from and how it can be resolved.
The book starts off with Jeannette, a successful adult, taking a taxi to a nice party. When she looked out the window, she saw a woman digging through the garbage. The woman was her mother. Rather than calling out to her or saying hi, Jeannette slid down into the seat in fear that her mother would see her. When asking her mother what she should say when people ask about her family, Rose Mary Walls only told her, “Ju...
Munro, C. Lynn. "The Revolt Of “Mother”." Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition (2004): 1-2. Literary Reference Center. Web. 2 Jan. 2014.
...by the wrong person. Only after the death of her mother can she let her guilt override her pride. Only after the death of her mother, when she can act on her own accord and not please her mother, does she truly play the piano. Their conflict has gone unsolved, and the mother has died believing that she was a failure as a parent. Throughout the daughter's childhood, both are trapped in their own selfish illusions. Their personalities clash, and neither is willing to compromise. It is unfortunate that neither can realize the extent to which they have damaged themselves individually and jointly. They are fundamentally the same, but, blinded by tenacity, neither realizes that "they are two halves of the same song."
The Narrator’s family treats her like a monster by resenting and neglecting her, faking her death, and locking her in her room all day. The Narrator’s family resents her, proof of this is found when the Narrator states “[My mother] came and went as quickly as she could.
Some people say that the love between a mother and her daughter is forever; but what about the understanding? In the case of Waverly Jong and her mother in the story “Rules of the Game,” by Amy Tan, there is much miscommunication and misunderstanding. The story is set in mid-1950’s Chinatown and as the story opens, it is Christmas time. “Rules of the Game” is the telling of how a little girl learns to be more independent but falls into conflict with her mother along the way and becomes a type of trophy. Amy Tan uses elements such as character, symbolism, and setting to portray the themes of struggle between two cultures and independence perfectly in “Rules of the Game.”
Through Waverly’s experiences in “Rules of the Game” by Amy Tan, the reader learns that one should not let one’s success change and affect one’s values and actions. Once, when Waverly is playing a chess tournament, during every move, Waverly will “pause, suck in [her] lips, twirl [her] chosen piece in midair… with a triumphant smile thrown back at [her] opponent for good measure.” (154) Waverly is very bold and confident to “suck in [her] lips” and “twirl [her] chosen piece in midair”. She behaved very rudely despite Waverly’s earlier teachings about chess etiquette from Lau Po. Waverly thinks too highly of herself and believes that since she is a chess champion, the same rules as before do not necessarily apply to her. Soon after Waverly becomes an even more well-known chess player, her parents begin making “many concessions to allow [her] to practice.
Marjane’s mother was one of the most influential people in her life, her mother taught her to be strong and independent. By introducing her mother through the story of her
As soon as Mama appears on stage, before she speaks a single word, the stage directions tell us, the audience, that Mama is a strong woman (40). She has endured many things, among them the loss of a child, and now the loss of her husband and yet she preserves. As the play progresses we learn that Mama has managed to act as the head of the family in extremely tough times, working day in and day out. Instead of choosing to be bitter about her l...