Spe'Shell Jolly-Sampson
McCormick
Honors English 5
15 Jan. 2011

In Amy Tans book The Joy Luck Club, Lena St. Clair a young Chinese-American female in America tells a brief story of her life. Starting in the chapter "The Voice From The Wall" Lena narrarates her younger parts of life, going to the chapter "Rice Husband" a chapter telling the parts of her life when she is a young adult.

In the very begining Lena tells the readers of a time when she was five and a dark side of her mother Gu Ying-ying (Betty St.Clair) sprang from the basement in their Oakland house. The door was barricaded with a chair, chains and key locks. One day she tried to open the door and fell headfirst into the dark basement. That day her mother tells she why she should never open the door again, "He had lived there for a thousand years, and was so evil and hungry that had [Ying-ying] not rescued [Lena] so quickly, [the] bad man would have planted five babies in [Lena] then eaten [them] all in a six-course meal, tossing [their] bones on the dirty floor" (103.) This began the terrible visions Lena saw "[She] saw these things with her Chinese eyes,the part she got from her mother" (103.) As she got older she saw things not seen by the white girls at school. All through her life her mother hide the terrible things from her, "The Evil man in the basement," and "The lady sitting on the sidewalk old and young at the same time, with dull eyes as if she hasn't slept in many years. The tips of her fingers and toes were rotted." (103-105.) Her mother tried to teach her to beware of all outcomes in the world, to make Lena see what comes of taking any risk. Lena and her father Clifford had translates Ying-yings (Betty) word always to make them sound happier than what was really being said. Later on in her life they moved from Oakland to an apartment in San Francisco onto a hill in North Beach. Ying-Ying was not happy with the move and for the firsat week unpacked to keep busy,soon after that they had met a man that threw her mother off balance. The man was "Red faced and Chinese man, with runny eyes." (108.) He had mistaken Ying-ying for someone else, he ran towards them screaming " I found you! Suzie Wong, girl of my dreams! Hah!" (108.) Then had her mother let go and covered her body to sheild herself as if she were naked, and helpless. From then on her mother let Lena know how sorry she had been she did not protect her daughter any better. Soon after that Ying-ying had become pregnant but Lena not knowing why her mother was moving things aroung complaining about the balance of things, wondered what happens if things were out of balanced until she soon found out about the new baby. Her mothers pregnancy had some affects on Lena as well, her bed was moved againist the wall and a crib was placed into her room, and now the street sounds she was so used to were gone and the sounds of yelling replaced it, the yelling was from the woman and young girl across the hall. Night after night Lena heard the disturbing sounds of the aurguements not ever knowing what was really going on except what she thought she could interpret. Not long after the "Voices from the Wall" were first heard Ying-ying was placed into the hospital and "for once [Lena's father] had no word to put into [her] mothers mouth, And for once, [Lena] had no ready anwser. (111-112.) The worst thing had happened the baby is anencephalic and dies. Ying-ying is not the same after that she "Fell apart,piece by piece..." (112.) Nights later after a dinner the doorbell rings and there stand the girl from across the hall, Teresa is her name. Her mother had kicked her out but instead of asking for help she tells Lena " [She] is going to use your fire escape to climb back into my [her] bedroom." (114.) That night she heard Teresa and her mother crying and laughing, and that same night she cried with them, because she had been wrong. As Lena got older she married a man named Harold Livotny happy at first but becomes unsure on what she gets into. In their marriage Harold insist on financial equality in thier relationship. While Lena works for Harold as an associate at his architectural firm, Livotny & Associates and Harold is a partner and makes atleast seven times more than Lena, he demands that all household charges be split equally between the two. By making everything equal Harold thinks, love can be made equal as well, making Lena feel angry and powerless. Now that she has realized the problem with Harold and her marriage, she finds it hard to remember whats so remarkable about him. The couple had a list dividing their expenses on what they had bought over the weeks and not until Ying-ying says somethin does Lena realize how unhappy she truly is. Harold and Lena aurgue about many thing such as "the cat- not [their] cat, or [her] cat, but the cat." (161) The cat Mirugai was Harolds gift to her as a birthday pressent and yet it has no owner. Not only has the cat caused problems but it is everything. In the end Lena realizes that Harold and her aren't right and maybe a divorce is best.