The Red Candle

"It was summertime, very hot and dusty outside, and I could hear cicadas crying in the yard. We were under some trees in our orchard. The servants and my brothers were picking high above me. And I was sitting in my mother's hot, sticky arms." This quote is an example of imagery because it uses words that appeal to the senses. It is used to describe the weather and the feelings of Lindo Jong.

"Over the next few years, Huang Taitai instructed the other servants to teach me how to sew sharp corners on pillowcases and to embroider my future family's name. How can a wife keep her husband's household in order if she has never dirtied her own hands, Huang Taitai used to say as she introduced me to a new task. I don't think Huang Taitai ever soiled her hands but she was very good at calling out orders and criticism." In this quote, Amy Tan tells how Lindo Jong is treated by her future mother-in-law. She is forced to do housework like a servant and is not shown any affection. Lindo Jong is only given criticism and more work.

Her situation is similar to that of Cinderella at the hands of her step-mother and step-sisters. She also was forced to do all of the chores like a servant. Both Lindo Jong and Cinderella were treated badly by their adoptive families. Cinderella

Scar

“When I was a young girl in China, my grandmother told me my mother was a ghost. This did not mean my mother was dead. In those days, a ghost was anything we were forbidden to talk about.” In this passage, a ghost is a symbol for something that should not be said or talked about. By telling An-Mei that her mother was a ghost, her grandmother was saying that her that her mother should not be mentioned.

Many people keep their feelings holed up inside them, never letting anyone know that something is wrong. “That is the way it is with a wound. The wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much. And once it is closed, you no longer see what is underneath, what started the pain.” In this chapter, An-Mei has a scar from having hot soup spilled on her when her mother came to visit. The soup scalded An-Mei’s skin and her mother left immediately. After her mother left, An-Mei was hurt both physically and emotionally. Over time her wound healed, the scar replaced it, and she suppressed her hurt. From the outside no one could tell anything was wrong.

This reminds me of a character in Thirteen Reasons Why. In the book, a girl had bad things happen to her. Instead of telling someone, she kept her feelings to herself where they built up. She tried to suppress her feelings so that no one would know about her wounds until she could no longer handle them. Both An-Mei and the girl had wounds that they kept to themselves, hidden from other people.

Joy Luck Club

"And then one evening, after I had begged her to buy me a transistor radio, after she refused and I sulked in silence for an hour, she said, 'Why do you think you are missing something you never had?' And then she told me a completely different ending to the story. 'An army officer came to my house early one morning,' she said, 'and told me to go quickly to my husband in Chungking..." Amy Tan uses this frame device to tell the story of Jing-mei Woo's mother and to give the reader insight into the relationship between mother and daughter.

In this chapter the reader learns that Jing-mei and her mother never really saw eye to eye. "I had always assumed we had an unspoken understanding about these things:  that she didn't really mean I was a failure, and I really meant I would try to respect her opinions more. But listening to Auntie Lin tonight reminds me once again:  My mother and I never really understood one another." In this the reader finds the specific problems in Jing-mei and her mother's relationship:  communicating with and understanding one another.

Today mothers and daughters seem to have the same dilemma. One never knows what the other is trying to say. It is one of the major problems in families and society in general: parents and children lack the ability to actually understand one another. This same problem is repeated over and over every generation. It happened with Rock and Roll and with the hippies in the 70s. It seems like a problem that can not be fixed.