The Joy Luck Club Part 2
The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates
A short fable about an American-born daughter and her Chinese mother arguing about cycling. The mother tells her daughter not to ride beyond her sight because she could fall and hurt herself. The daughter asks how her mother could know this, and the mother tells her about a Chinese document called the Twenty-Six Malignant Gates which talks of accidents. The daughter refuses to believe her mother and runs out to play but she suffers a fall just as she gets on the bike.
Chapter 5: The Rules of the Game
Waverly Jong learned about hiding her plans in silence from her mother at a young age. Her brothers received a chess set for Christmas, but they lost interest in the game while Waverly gained an obsession. She studied each piece incessantly until she understood all of its potential, and she played against a wide set of opponents to teach herself the means to put it together. She became very good at Chess so much so that she had gained the status of a national champion at 9. She won sponsorships from her local shops and became a little celebrity in their part of the world. Her mother, Lindo, was always very involved with Waverly’s journey as a chess prodigy and spent hours watching her practice. Waverly disliked how her mother would use her to show off to the other Chinese mothers, and one day she told her mother to stop using her in this way in the middle of the street. Waverly ran away from her mother and remained outside the house for a long time. She returned home much later, but the incident made a deep impression on her mother who stopped being as involved with Waverly’s chess.
Chapter 6: The Voice from the Wall
Lena grew up fearing the superstitions that her mother taught her about, and the pair of them were always expecting terrible things to happen to them. Lena spoke Chinese and English so she understood both of her parents, but her parents had a terrible time understanding one another. Consequently, Lena spent a long time with her mother and soon came to believe that her mother was insane. This belief became certain when her family moved to a new apartment building, and her mother suffered a miscarriage. When the deformed baby was born, Lena hid from her father the fact that her mother blamed herself for causing the child’s death. Ying-Ying became very depressed afterward, and it caused a very melancholy environment in her house. Yet, Lena would comfort herself that her life was not as bad as her neighbor’s who could often be heard having violent arguments with her mother. She soon learned that there was an alternative side to her neighbor’s relationship with her mother, as she heard them make a loving reunion after they had been angry at one another for a long time.
Chapter 7: Half and Half
Rose’s mother had always been very religious, and yet she used the bible, which had once been given to her by the missionaries, under the leg of a wobbly table leg. Rose recalls the day that her mother’s faith had been tested. Rose and her family had gone to the beach to spend a day of recreation. Her father went over to the pier to fish, and her older sisters went to play on their own. Rose, the middle child, was left to watch over her youngest brothers, and although Rose attempted to be very diligent, she could not prevent her youngest brother, Bing, from falling into the ocean. The family waited for hours as the authorities tried to rescue Bing but he could not be found. Rose thought that everyone would blame her when they returned home, but all the members of the family felt like they had been responsible for Bing’s death. The following day, Rose was dragged to the beach by her mother, who threw a sapphire ring into the ocean with the hope of recovering Bing, but it never took place.
Now Rose is getting divorced from her husband, Ted, but her mother presses her to find a way to save her marriage. She tells her that only Rose knows how to save her marriage. Rose looks in the bible and finds Bing’s name written in pencil under the title of Deaths.
Chapter 8: Two Kinds
June recalls her mother’s seemingly unending optimism, and how Waverly’s success in chess had inspired Suuyan to find the talent that may have been hidden in her daughter. The two of them would spend hours trying to get June to be good at a wide variety of things, and though June had been excited by their activity at first, the constant disappointment began to wear on her. Suuyan kept trying to make her daughter good at something but June stopped trying altogether. Suuyan eventually got June piano lessons from a deaf Chinese man in their neighborhood, but June never made an effort. Suuyan had no idea how June played, so when June was signed up for a recital, she invited all the families from the Joy Luck Club to come to listen to her daughter. June thought that she was already a prodigy and so she played confidently but during the performance, she came to realize how terrible she was playing. June felt humiliated and thought that she would no longer have to practice the piano but even after the recital Suuyan insisted that June practice the instrument. June felt so angry at her mother that she yelled at her, and told her that she wished she were dead like Suuyan’s other daughters. In the present, June plays the piano in her mother’s house and remembers that her mother had believed in her ability as a pianist even when June turned 30. She realizes that her mother had been right.
Analysis
The fable that opens the second part of the novel raises the theme of conflict between a Chinese mother who wishes to protect her child, and an American daughter who refuses to believe the traditional knowledge of her mother. In the previous section, readers learn the history of the mothers from the Joy Luck Club with a focus on their childhood. In this second part of the novel, the focus shifts to the childhood of their daughters in America. All the mothers in the Joy Luck Club attempt to impart crucial lessons from their childhood Waverly Jong learns how to be quiet and deliberate from her mother Lindo, who had escaped from a betrothal without dishonoring her family. Yet, all of their daughters misread their mothers’ intentions and develop unhealthy dynamics with them. June only realizes after her mother’s death that Suuyan had not been attempting to control her but only to show her that she could be good at things if she tried to do them with honesty.
