Lena St.Clair: The Voice from the Wall; The Joy Luck Club-Amy Tan; imagery

     This next chapter of The Joy Luck Club continues the current theme of mother-daughter relationships and the narrator is Ying-Ying's daughter Lena.  She tells a childhood story of how herself and her mother, having Chinese heritage, look deeper into the dangers and outcomes of situations.  Lena and her mother see hidden dangers in certain objects.  Most people today would not be concerned with the possible tragic outcome of a tether ball set or monkey bars.  Society sees the immediate dangers; such as, falling off and being hit with the tether ball.  This quote from the current chapter adds vivid imagery to the story.

"And the dead man embraced my great-grnadfather with the jagged pieces of his arm and pulled him through the wall, to show him what he meant."

      The imagery used here engages the readers' "mind's eye" and they see with their imagination the man who was "like a smashed vase hastily put back together."  This chapter tells the reader a little bit more about Lena's and Ying-Ying's relationship.  Lena tells her American dad what her mother is saying when she says something in Chinese and does not translate it herself into English.  Lena and her mother show a common bond in being afraid of the possible dangers of a situation.  This is similar to today's society when children begin to care for their own parents.  As one's parents get older the children tend to take care of them more, similar to when the parents took care of their children.  The roles are reversed, similar to what happens in this chapter when Ying-Ying struggles with coping with the death of her newborn son; Lena takes care of her mother.