Rules of the Game
Amy Tan writes American literature with a Chinese-American view with her short story titled “Rules of the Game”, where she shows multiple themes like; chess is a game of life, mothers versus daughters, cultural gap, and the generation gap.
The Characters
The writer Amy Tan uses similar experiences to give the characters life and a sense of real Chinese-American life and the clash between cultures. The Chinese have a life thought of honor and luck and the American's is cockiness and self-confidence.
The protagonist- Waverly, is a seven-year-old, Chinese-American stuck in between the two cultures clashing. Being a round character, Waverly shows joy and aggravation. In showing joy, she is encouraged to go to chess tournaments and thinks to herself, “I desperately wanted to but I bit my tongue back”. Wanting to join in the tournaments, she tells her mother she does not want to make her do the opposite. Waverly gets very aggravated at her mother. Waverly says to her mother, “Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, then learn to chess”. Waverly has had enough of her mother gloating and telling everyone how great Waverly is at chess. Since Waverly has multiple, emotions she is a round character and well developed. Waverly as a static character is the same in the beginning as in the end. Her mother, in a pushy manor towards Waverly says, “Every time people come out from foreign country must know the rules.” In a sense also threatens her by saying, “You not know, judge say, too bad, go back”. Meaning that she could be sent back to China if she did not follow the rules. At the end of the story, her mother says to the rest of the family, “We not concerning this girl. This girl not concerning us”. That tells the reader that the family should have nothing to do with her and she is back to being the least liked in the family being a girl and last born in a Chinese family. These give the story the cultural influence of how Chinese parents teach and
The Characters
The writer Amy Tan uses similar experiences to give the characters life and a sense of real Chinese-American life and the clash between cultures. The Chinese have a life thought of honor and luck and the American's is cockiness and self-confidence.
The protagonist- Waverly, is a seven-year-old, Chinese-American stuck in between the two cultures clashing. Being a round character, Waverly shows joy and aggravation. In showing joy, she is encouraged to go to chess tournaments and thinks to herself, “I desperately wanted to but I bit my tongue back”. Wanting to join in the tournaments, she tells her mother she does not want to make her do the opposite. Waverly gets very aggravated at her mother. Waverly says to her mother, “Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, then learn to chess”. Waverly has had enough of her mother gloating and telling everyone how great Waverly is at chess. Since Waverly has multiple, emotions she is a round character and well developed. Waverly as a static character is the same in the beginning as in the end. Her mother, in a pushy manor towards Waverly says, “Every time people come out from foreign country must know the rules.” In a sense also threatens her by saying, “You not know, judge say, too bad, go back”. Meaning that she could be sent back to China if she did not follow the rules. At the end of the story, her mother says to the rest of the family, “We not concerning this girl. This girl not concerning us”. That tells the reader that the family should have nothing to do with her and she is back to being the least liked in the family being a girl and last born in a Chinese family. These give the story the cultural influence of how Chinese parents teach and