“‘Check,’ I said, as the wind roared with laughter. The wind died down to little puffs, my own breath.” Amy Tan’s short story, Rules of the Game, is about a talented Chinese-American girl, Waverly Place Jong, who aspires to become a champion in chess. As the story progresses, she builds up experience and becomes close to fulfilling her dream with help from her mother she takes for granted. At the end of the story, Waverly gets annoyed at her and runs away from her, only to figure out the action is her loss. A theme in Rules of the Game is the significance of family in one’s life, because the story demonstrates that parents provide support, guidance, and knowledge.
First, the theme of Rules of the Game is the value of guardians in a minor’s
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For example, when Waverly was little, she whined because she wanted salted plums. Her mother responded, using the wind as a metaphor, “Come from South, blow with wind-poom!-North will follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen." The tip proves to be useful when Waverly plays chess. She avoids revealing clues about her thoughts through facial expression, so her opponents cannot read through her. Because of her mother, the girl often emerges victorious after participating in matches. Furthermore, when her daughter is curious about Chinese torture, Mrs. Jong instructs, "Chinese people do business, do medicine, do painting. Not lazy like American people. We do torture. Best torture.” She takes pride in her Chinese ethnicity, acting as a role model for her child. Waverly not only learns to have confidence in her culture, but gender as well. Later in the story, a male opponent looks down on her because she is a female. However, she does not let that discourage her, and is triumphant at the end of the game- thanks to her mother’s advice. Waverly’s successes are possible because of the one who gave birth to