Part 2: The Voice from
the Wall
A. Language
Barrier
There is an obvious language barrier between
a Chinese mother and American-Chinese daughter. Lena mentioned, “I could understand the words perfectly, but
not the meanings. One thought led to another without connection” [pg 106]
Lena also often lies when she has to
translate for her mother. She was so embarrassed once that she told her mother
that Chinese people weren’t allowed to shop there.
Not only linguistic barrier exist
between mother-daughter but also among English husband and Chinese wife.
Clifford St. Clair normally put words in his wife’s mouth. They communicate
with moods and gestures, looks and silences.
B. Assimilation
of Chinese genes
Lena always describe this part of her
by saying ‘Chinese eyes’ as if to
emphasize on her no eyelids, Chinese people’s eyes. She tried to be more
American by opening them wide and walked around the house.
C. Neighbours
Lena constantly hears the mother and
daughter in the adjacent apartment yelling, fighting and even throwing things.
It comforted her to think that the girl next door have a more unhappy life. The
difference between these noisy confrontations and her own relationship with her
mother (which is marked by silence and avoidance of conflict), begins to make
Lena realise something important. As Lena bumped into Teresa Sorci, she found
out that the latter seemed quite happy. Through the shouting and fighting, it
somehow expresses a kind of deep love between the mother-daughter pair.
Author's
note:
Lena learned that
expressing one’s feelings is vital to make things work and alive. She somehow
will realise how she can apply this lesson then to her unhappy married life
with Harold.
Part
3: Rice Husband
# Conflict
between the modernised world
# Communication gap
between mother and daughter
A. Mother – Ying-ying
In the beginning of
this story, Lena tells us that her mother has the ability to know things before
it happens. Ying-ying know what causes the bad things to happen, “now she laments that she never did anything
to stop them” [pg 149]. Ying-ying’s ignorance seems to pass down to her
daughter – how it affects Lena’s personality and attitude towards her marriage.
Lena wonders what
her mother ‘will see’ in her new
house before she arrives. Ying-ying somehow had pointed out all the flaws of
construction/architecture in the house and it convinces her that her mother can
tell what is happening in her marriage. Previously, Lena’s narration mentioned
that Harold and herself had fought over her cat’s fleas fee but she already knew
that “our problems are much, much deeper
than that”. Lena knew that her marriage is rocking but she never do
anything about it.
B. Husband – Harold Livotny
Her relationship
with Harold is the same as the balance sheet stuck on the refrigerator. His
philosophy of love is to separate money with feelings, as in keeping what is
his, as his. Harold calls it ‘equality’ and
‘love without obligation’ . Money is
an obvious issue here. Despite the fact that he make seven times more than what
she made, they divide all expenditures equally.
When Lena had finally confronted
Harold about their predicament, it made her feel inferior and indecisive of her
option.
“Or maybe we
shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place. Maybe Harold is a bad man.
Maybe I’ve made him this way” [pg 164]
Her own train of thoughts describes
what Rose had told her previously. The feeling of fear “are commonplace in woman like us”. Women like us refers to their ethnicity because they are “raised in all this Chinese humility” and
as a Chinese, you’re supposed to accept everything, flow with Tao and not make
waves.
Lena succumbed in those beliefs and
the trait she got from her mother that made her relationship with Harold to be
what it is now.
Author's
note:
Here, ‘Rice Husband’
refers to both Harold and Arnold. Amy Tan’s use of homophone in both men that
affects Lena’s life is to showcase the similarity and yet differences between them.
Ying-ying’s words are planted deep in Lena’s own thoughts and she believed
everything her mother had said. Her
narration, “when I want something to
happen – or not happen – I begin to look at all events and all things as
relevant, an opportunity to take or avoid”
Arnold became her
opportunity to take as she started to leave more rice and food on her
bowl so that he would get leprosy and die in Africa. Whereas, Harold is what
she chose to avoid despite all the
signs are flashing in front of her very eyes.
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