Joy Luck Club- The Meaning to the Introduction

The purpose for Amy Tan's introduction to The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates in the book, The Joy Luck Club,  is to foreshadow what mainly will happen in the next two chapters, Rules of the Game and The Voice from the Wall.

The introduction speaks of a mother telling her child not to ride her bike around the corner because she will be out of her sight and fall. The daughter questions this assumption made by her mother and the mother responds with, "It is in a book, The Twenty- Six Malignant Gates, all the bad things that can happen to you outside the protection of this house," (87). The purpose of the introduction is to show that the next section of the Joy Luck Club will be based on mothers protecting their children from the bad things that can happen to them and how they are trying to steer them away form that danger that lies ahead for each one of them.

In, The Rules of the Game, the main character in that chapter, Waverly Jong's mother wants to protect her from the dangers that can happen. After Waverly had won chess competitions, she was favored by her mother and she was always right above her, "My mother had a habit of standing over me while I plotted out my games.  I think she thought of herself as my protective ally," (98). A mother does not want to see her child fail in life, so in order to keep that from happening, Waverly's mother stands over her for protection from harm.

The second chapter to this section of the book, The Voice from the Wall, Lena St Clair's mother would make up lies to protect her daughter from the harm of the truth, "And I knew that was not true. I knew my mother made up anything to warn me, to help me avoid some unknown danger. My mother saw danger in everything," (105). Although Lena's mother still lied to her, it was her way of protecting her daughter from knowing the truth about certain things. Later on, we find out in the story of how Lena's mother had lost a baby that she kept a secret from Lena. It was an untold truth that protected Lena from going down the same path.

This section of The Joy Luck Club talks about the protection that a mother has over her child.