Waverly And Meanie In Rules Of The Relationship

However, both Waverly and Sophie have similar and different personalities. In Rules of the game, Waverly Jong becomes well-known, as she triumphs in her quest to be a chess champion. However, she has multiple personalities; sometimes she is good and other times she is bad. One example of this is when she receives a pack of Life Saver candy as a Christmas present, where she does not complain like most children would, but is very grateful. Instead of being depress of her gift she makes the best of it by using it as chess pieces and bartering for games of chess with an elder in the park. On the other hand, Sophie has a very rebelling personality. She does not listen to her grandmother when she is told not to do something. For example, when they …show more content…
I hate you, Meanie!” (Jen 64).Clearly, she does not like her grandmother because her grandmother doesn’t let her do certain things that the other American children in the park were doing. In the same way, Waverly has this rebelling personality. An example is when she becomes very frustrated with her mother towards the end of the story and runs away. She shows her darker side here by being frustrated at her mother and she also disrespects her Chinese heritage of respecting her parents. On the contrary, Waverly’s feelings for her mother changes as her mother demonstrate a lack of knowledge of American culture. In the beginning, she would follow her mother 's rules and behave well, but becomes embarrassed as her mother grew proud of her. She feels as if her mother is showing her off like a trophy. In fact, Waverly’s feelings changed but Sophie’s feelings didn’t change. Sophie never liked her grandmother from the beginning, but even if she wants to change that she couldn’t because in the end they hardly have contact with each other. The personalities of Sophie and Waverly both have a huge impact on each story, for it helps to show, the theme of a struggling relationship between the girls and their mother/grandmother and the lack of understanding between the …show more content…
Lindo, who is the antagonist in Rules of the Game have similar and different personalities. They both keep their Chinese heritage throughout the story and takes great pride in it. In addition, their viewpoint is base on a Chinese-American who does not fully understand American culture. Mrs. Lindo keeps her Chinese heritage when she displays how proud she is of Waverly. However, she does not understand her daughter fully. In the text, after Waverly wins a chess game her mother states, "Next time win more, lose less" (Tan 504). Waverly tells her mother that the amount of chess pieces does not matter, but her mother still is set on the idea that to win chess, the player needs to lose the least amount of pieces. Another example of when Mrs. Jong takes pride in her Chinese culture is when she states that "Chinese people do many things. Chinese people do business, do medicine, do painting. Not lazy like American people. We do torture. Best torture" (Tan 499). This shows that she likes her Chinese heritage and is not accepting of the American culture. In contrast, the grandmother who is sixty-eight years old in Who’s Irish keeps her Chinese heritage by spanking Sophie, who she considers wild, when she takes off her clothes in the park and throws them into the fountain. Sophie starts to cry and her grandmother tells her that if she doesn’t put her clothes back on she will get spanked again. Upon