Mother-Daughter Relationships

“Rules of the Game,” like the novel in which it appears, The Joy Luck Club, is primarily about the complex relationships between mothers and daughters. In this story, Waverly learns from her mother, Lindo, but later sees her as her enemy, an obstacle in her way to achieving success and a sense of herself. Early in the story, when Waverly is only six years old, Lindo instructs her in various lessons, the most prominent being “the art of invisible strength.” Lindo herself is a master of this art, and Waverly will become quite proficient herself; the problem is that both mother and daughter will have to fight battles against one another using the same skill set, and the mother has more experience. The “game” referred to in the story’s title refers both to the game of chess that is the story’s purported focus and the game that is navigating mother-daughter relationships.

Lindo is clearly a good caretaker and concerned parent. She wants her children to be successful and have opportunities; she and her husband immigrated to the United States in part for that very reason. Waverly admits that her “bowl was always full, three five-course meals every day.” Lindo wants to protect her children, warning them against running into the street, for example. When Waverly is young, she knows how to push her mother’s buttons because she knows her mother’s strong opinions. She brings up the question “What is Chinese torture?” just to get a reaction out of Lindo, who also seems to know what her daughter is doing but does not let it show. Waverly and Lindo know each other very well, and they are ultimately very similar people. However, as a young girl growing up, Waverly wants to assert a sense of self apart from Lindo or anyone else. Despite her mother’s obvious support of and pride in Waverly’s chess prowess, Waverly rebels against her mother. She becomes increasingly irritated by Lindo’s involvement and especially by her parading Waverly around the neighborhood to show her off.

In the story’s climax, mother and daughter each attempt to get a reaction from the other. Waverly expects her mother to apologize or feel guilty for making Waverly uncomfortable, and she especially expects Lindo to express profound relief when her daughter returns home after running from her in the street. However, Lindo upends those expectations by simply saying, “We not concerning this girl. This girl not have concerning for us.” She is punishing Waverly for her rebellion by not giving her the attention she desires. Lindo, on the other hand, expects her daughter to come back when she screams her nickname—“Meimei!”—in an effort to draw Waverly back. Instead, Waverly keeps running, hoping to punish her mother with worry about her whereabouts. They are each strategizing about the outcome and attempting to control it. Lindo wins this round, as Waverly goes up to her room feeling defeated, seeing her mother as her “opponent” on the other side of an imaginary chessboard. Lindo “[wears] a triumphant smile” in this vision, as her pieces “[advance] across the plane” and force Waverly’s to scream and fall off the board. Waverly feels “alone” but then begins to “ponder [her] next move.” She understands that her mother has bested her but also that this back-and-forth conflict between them will continue. Through their metaphorical chess game, Tan depicts mother-daughter relationships as defined by both love and good intentions, and tension and endless battles of will.

Secrets and Silence

Waverly is drawn to the game of chess initially because she thinks of it as a game characterized by secrets. At first, of course, chess is a complete unknown for Waverly; she must build her knowledge gradually, through a series of matches with Vincent, then with Lau Po, and eventually in competitive tournaments. She is attracted to her sense that chess’s “secrets [are] waiting to be untangled” and is up for the challenge. Once she becomes skilled in the game, Waverly has her own secrets, her strategies for how to defeat her opponents, which are the result of experience and her imaginary matches that she plays in her room while looking at the ceiling or at her drawn chessboard on the wall. It is to her advantage to have secrets in chess. She claims, “That is the power of chess. It is a game of secrets in which one must show and never tell.”

The idea of showing and not telling also links with Waverly’s lessons on silence and “invisible strength,” given her from a young age by her mother, Lindo. Her mother tells her that the “strongest wind cannot be seen,” which implies that Waverly should be quiet and obedient; she should not draw attention to herself. Because of their reliance on silence, the metaphorical chess game that builds between Lindo and Waverly as Waverly grows up becomes more difficult to navigate. Each must guess at her opponent’s next move and wonder at how the other feels or what the other is thinking. It could be argued that the “invisible strength” that Waverly and Lindo share, and that Lindo so determinedly taught her daughter, leads to greater tension in their relationship because they do not communicate openly. Silence and secrets are advantages in chess but may not be as useful in relationships.

The American Dream

The American dream and the immigrant experience are important background themes in “Rules of the Game.” Throughout the story, Waverly recounts lessons from her mother that are related to Lindo’s own Chinese upbringing. For example, in explaining invisible strength she says, “In Chinese we say, Come from South, blow with wind—poom!—North will follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen.” Lindo’s dialogue is not spoken in conventional formal English. Instead, she speaks in shorter phrases that leave some words out, like “Was smash flat” to indicate that a girl got hit and run over by a car. Waverly says on the first page of the story that “We lived in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Like most of the other Chinese children who played in the back alleys . . . I didn’t think we were poor.” These examples are evidence of the Jong family’s immigration from China to California and their current residence in an immigrant-centered community.

Lindo’s Chinese background definitely impacts her interaction with her children, namely her “daily truth” that “she could help [Waverly and her brothers] rise above [their] circumstances.” This quotation acknowledges that Lindo is aware of and actively seeking opportunities for her children to live a proverbial “better life.” Because of her focus on her children’s success in the United States, home of the American dream, Lindo becomes very invested in Waverly’s rise in the chess world. When Waverly graces the cover of Life, she is also “touted as the Great American Hope.” She has grown up American and has earned her place in the land of opportunity. Lindo clearly sees chess as the path that will put her child on the road to a good life. Lindo takes pride in her daughter’s accomplishments, even though that embarrasses Waverly deeply. At the same time, Lindo also expresses some suspicion and disdain for “American rules” and American culture, calling Americans lazy at one point. She both takes great pride in her Chinese roots and wants her children to achieve American success. Lindo and her hopes for Waverly thus exemplify the paradoxical nature of the immigrant experience.