Summary of Waverly Jong Waverly is really smart (child prodigy at chess) and can also be really snobby. She says to Jing-mei, "You’re not a genius like me." At least she also admits to being petty. Ultimately she’s very competitive. This comes out in her chess games, in her relationship with Jing-mei, and you also get the sense that getting her job at Price Waterhouse required a competitive nature.
She is in control, she has direction, but only while she and her mother are allies. When Waverly starts to see her mother as the enemy, Waverly slowly loses her self-confidence, and begins to lose chess games as well. This is shows when Waverly says, “I could no longer see the secret weapons of each piece, the magic within the intersection of each square; I could only see my mistakes, my weaknesses” (172). By adulthood, she is a slave to her mother’s criticism, when in reality; it is Waverly’s lack of self-confidence that caused her to lose direction. Likewise, when one lacks a sense of direction, one is unable to pursue one’s wishes.
At a young age, Waverly was inspired by his brothers to play chess. Her mother knew that Waverly was going to be a great chess player so that Waverly can hide her emotions in the game, but also in life. With the invisible strength on Waverly’s side, she was able to win a lot of medals and trophies’ from the chess tournament, earning her the title of “Chess Champion”, thus showing that Waverly obtain knowledge about the invisible strength. When rumours spread around the town that Waverly is now the chess champion, Lindo drags her daughter around town to every person she meets, even strangers to brag about how wonderful and smart her daughter is, winning trophies for her to clean, organize etc. One particular individual that Lindo brags about her daughter to is Suyuan and her daughter Jing Mei Woo whom Waverly competes with.
She then goes to the Hsus' house which felt, “heavy with greasy odors.” (Tan 15) She acts very courteous to everyone and respects the wishes of her elders as displayed when she accepts to take her mother’s place at the mahjong table. She feels out of place because she is younger than everyone else, and she finds out that her mother had made excuses for her to the other members. Although June dropped out of college, her mother told them that she might go back for a degree. “..but I know right away she’s lying. I know my mother probably told her I was going back to school to finish my degree.” (Tan 27) As the chapter is coming to an end and the night is at its peak, Jing-Mei starts to get up to leave but when the women stop her and tell June that her mother had left behind two infant twin daughters in China, she was shocked.
Many mothers want their daughters to strive to do the best they can under any circumstance. This was especially evident in “Two Kinds” where the mother expects all to succeed in America, especially her daughter. The maternal figures in the story are competitive with each other and the narrator’s own mother wants her daughter to be a star. More specifically, she wants her daughter to be better than her friend’s daughter, a girl characterized as being an amazing chess player. Not only does she want her to be a better chess player, but the narrator’s mother believes that her daughter could be a music prodigy and become famous.
Not lazy like American people.”’(Tan, 91) Lindo Jong showed extreme pride in her home country while shining a stereotypically negative light on Americans. Little did she know that her deceptive daughter was interested in learning more about “torture” than “Chinese.” Lindo’s nationalistic behavior showed her slight disapproval of Americans and caused Waverly to question her engagement to Rich. Lindo’s tendency to over-encourage her daughter to work harder resulted to Waverly’s constant longing for her mother’s approval on her life’s major events. Despite the culture difference, the pairs were also in fact mother and daughter. The mothers’ more traditional ways disputed with the daughters’ modernistic ideas.
He hasn't eaten since breakfast and late at night while he waits for Corley to return with money, he orders a meal of peas and vinegar with a bottle of ginger beer for his dinner. He simply doesn't have the money for a proper meal. And, his future looks dismal: it will only get worse. By showing this detail, readers are not as quick to judge Joyce's character, and while we certainly can't like this leech, we can perhaps understand and view him in a sympathetic light. In "Clay," the older unmarried character Maria lives a life of diligent sacrifice for a pittance.
However, Rich unknowingly makes many mistakes in Chinese etiquette during the meal. Waverly states that “He had brought a bottle of French wine, something he did not know my parents could not appreciate” (Tan, 177). He then gulped down one glass of wine and downed another to make a toast when everyone else had only
She describes her mother as a natural story teller (Kramer 48). Her mother had a great impact on her life. As a child Tan was rebellious against her origins and was often embarrassed by her family’s customs (“Amy Tan” 1). Though The Joy Luck Club was not an autobiography, many of the stories are based on her and her mother’s own life experiences. Tan’s first book, The Joy Luck Club, had many influences including her relationship with her mother, the stories her mother told, understanding and becoming comfortable with her culture, and her own life experiences.
In most cases this is true, for when they grow up they eventually figure out that they can reflect (retrace) their problems to that of their parents, and later understand what they had to go through. In the story The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Jing-mei is (acts like) an ignorant girl to her mother. Whatever tactic her mother tries on her to make her a better person she rejects. Jing-mei is constantly trying to hide her Chinese heritage and even changes her name to “June” to conform to American ways. But as she moves on in life, she begins to regret her past actions and finds out that her mother’s difficulties and problems, are (now) put on her shoulders and (now) for her to solve.