Concession in Amy Tans Joy Luck Club Essay -- Joy Luck Club Essays

Concession in Amy Tans Joy Luck Club Sometimes you have to lose pieces to get ahead, explains the narrator of The Rules of the Game, a befuddled piece from Amy Tans novel The Joy Luck Club that has arguably achieved greater readership through its appearance in numerous anthologies (505). The Rules of the Game pivots around the concept that one may triumph in a win-lose situation through a concession. Narrator Waverly Jong recounts applications of this head as she grows into adolescence in her Chinese-American community. From her adventures in the local marketplace to her romps on the chess battlefield, Waverlys prizes while asserting her concede-to-win strategy include physical objects and abstractions, the intangibility of the latter implying that ones examination of this story must consider terms like conflict, win, and freeing in the broadest sense possible. With this in mind, Tans The Rules of the Game explores the determinants behind wins and losses, ultimately suggesting that the most effective way to achieve victory is through an act of concession. Tan introduces this idea as a vague proverb rattled by Waverlys mother that Waverly bevels into sharp clarity by her involvement in situations of conflict that eventually butt the veracity of her mothers words. The first conflict of The Rules of the Game materializes when Waverly accompanies her mother to the marketplace as a young child and experiences a loss. Bite back your tongue, scolded my mother when I cried loudly, yanking her hand toward the store that... ... in the struggle to win. In short, Tan presents several conflicts that investigate the factors in win-lose situations, each conflict reiterating the notion that one must lead a triviality to outmaneuver his opponent to victory. This abstraction appears immediately in the story in an abstruse manner but is eventually clarified by evaluating the consistencies of the sundry conflicts. The repetition of these conflicts with similar outcomes involving (or not involving) concessions elucidates the idea that an act of concession is assuredly the most foolproof approach to triumph in a struggle. crop Cited Tan, Amy. The Rules of the Game. The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories. Ed. Tobias Wolff. New York Random House, Inc., 1994. 497-508.