The Invisible Strength in Rules of the Game by Amy Tan
Rules of the Game that is written by Amy Tan is a short story about Waverly Place Jong, a girl who became a national chess champion in her ninth birthday. This girl can break the opinion from Bobby Fischer that said “There will never be a woman grand master.” Waverly Place Jong who was usually called by Meimei in her family, knew chess game from her brothers. The chess game that was got as a Christmas present by Vincent, one of her brothers, is successful attracting Meimei’s attention. Chess game is also successful to change Meimei’s life.
In the beginning of this story, the narrator, Meimei, explains how her mother taught her the art of invisible strength when she was only six years old. Her mother said that it is a strategy for winning arguments, respect, and chess games. Although she was unaware of the last one at the time she learned the art. Actually, the invisible strength is something that abstract. We can’t touch it and do not know how the invisible strength shape is. What is the invisible strength? How Strong is it?
We can see in the second paragraph the sentence “Wise guy, he not go against wind.” It shows that in her mind the wind has a very great strength. She also said that the strongest wind cannot be seen. This sentence refers to invisible strength. It means that the invisible strength is the strongest strength. Although it even cannot be seen, it has a very great strength.
In Rules of the Game, there are a lot of other characters. However we never get to know them. They seem like unimportant things for the story. They move around in an inspired and detailed description of San Francisco’s Chinatown, the place where Meimei and her family live.
As we can see in the fifth paragraph the narrator tells about her father appearance. “From my bed, I would listen as my father got ready for work, the locked the door behind him, one-two-three clicks. (Paragraph 5). However the narrator prefers to give the details in how the door is locked behind her father than to tell more about her father. It impresses that her father is not important. The main focus of narrator narration in this paragraph is in the situation of Waverly Place in the morning not in her father.
Throughout the story the author avoids describing the minor characters. She doesn’t let us to know more about the minor characters. We can also see that the author decides to choose men as the minor characters. As the example, Amy Tan uses Lau Po as the character that taught Meimei all things that he knew about chess game. He taught Meimei until she became a better chess player. Meimei became a good chess player even better than Lau Po.
Unfortunately, we can’t know more about who Lau Po is. The author doesn’t give other identities or important characteristics from Lau Po. In this story Lau Po is only used to explain how to play chess game with Chinese taste. “Lau Po gave me the names. The Double Attack from the East and West Shores. Throwing Stones on the Drowning Man. The Sudden Meeting of the Clan. The Surprise from the Sleeping Guard. The Humble Servant Who Kills the King. Sand in the Eyes of Advancing Forces. A Double Killing Without Blood.” (Paragraph 35). Those are some Chinese names that were told by Lau Po to Meimei.
In this way the author wants to give emphasis to how a woman can exceed the ability of a man. Lau Po is not only the character that is used by Amy Tan to make this emphasis. Meimei’s brothers are also the minor characters that create an assumption that a woman can be better than a man. Meimei’s curiosity about chess game is more than her two brothers. Meimei has a very great curiosity about chess game. In the other hand, although her two brothers knew chess game earlier than Meimei they only played it for a while. It is because they decided they were more interested in roaming the streets after school in their Hopalong Cassidy cowboy hats. It shows the positive thing of a woman. Not like a man, a woman can be keener and focus on a work.
In this story invisible strength is like wind. “Strongest wind cannot be seen.” (Paragraph 2). This invisible strength also refers to a strength that is owned by a woman. Like wind, a woman is looked weak and graceful. A woman is often considered as a creature that always needs help. However, sometimes a woman can be very strong. Every woman has invisible strength. Like, the invisible strength, which is like wind cannot be seen, every woman has the strongest strength in themselves. A woman is not as weak as her look.
This invisible strength is cannot be separated from the word ART. Since the beginning of story, Amy Tan has already emphasizes in the phrase “art of invisible strength”. “I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength.” (Paragraph 1). As we can see, the phrase “art of invisible strength” appears in the first sentence of the first paragraph. Amy Tan not only shows this phrase in the beginning of the story to emphasize the invisible strength, she also gives the information about the age of narrator when she first knew about it. Amy Tan wants to show how important “the art of invisible strength” is. Even, narrator’s mother had already told about it to the narrator when she was very young.
The using of the word ART in the phrase “the art of invisible strength” builds up an abstract impression in that phrase. Why doesn’t Amy Tan choose another word that can make the invisible strength looked more real? She can use the other words such as technique and trick to show the step how to do the invisible strength. However, she still decides to choose ART as the complement of that phrase. “Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items (often with symbolic significance) in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect. From this definition we can see that art is also strong. It deliberately arranges item.” ("Art," 2011). Amy Tan wants to maintain the abstraction of invisible strength but she still wants to show that invisible strength is very strong by using word ART. We can see that the word art is also strong form the definition above.
In the second paragraph, Amy Tan still tells about the art of invisible strength. She begins her story with such an intermezzo. This is about Meimei who cried when she wanted her mother to buy her bags of salted plums. However her mother asked her daughter to bite back her tongue. Thus, the next week when they entered the store with the forbidden candies, Meimei bit back her tongue. When the mother finished her shopping, she quietly plucked a small bag of plums from the rack and put it on the counter with the rest of the item. At that time she was teaching her daughter about invisible strength. She was teaching her daughter how to get her wants without saying what she wants. Actually, it is a bit ironic. “Irony (from the Ancient Greek εἰρωνεία eirōneía, meaning dissimulation or feigned ignorance) is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions.”("Irony," 2011). Thus, it seems like discordance. How can we get our wants without saying it?
Besides that, in this story Amy Tan has another way to explain about the invisible strength. Amy Tan uses the metaphor from rules of the chess game and compares it with rules to get success in life. When Meimei first played the chess game, she asked many question to her brothers. "Why?" I asked as I moved my pawn. "Why can't they move more steps?" "But why do they go crossways to take other men? Why aren't there any women and children?". Those are some questions that were asked by Meimei. Actually when we play chess we do not know why we should do the rules to win the game. However, Meimei’s questions were answered by her mother but it is not a real answer. “Better you take it, find out why yourself." (Paragraph 27).
Later Meimei would know more the reason of why her mother taught her to find out why herself. “I also found out why I should never reveal "why" to others. A little knowledge withheld is a great advantage one should store for future use. That is the power of chess. It is a game of secrets in which one must show and never tell.” (Paragraph 30). Those sentences also reflect the invisible strength. A little knowledge that we show but don’t tell is a great advantage one should store for future use. Amy Tan wants to show that this rule is also appropriate for the real life. The invisible strength, which is like a game of secrets, is a strategy for success in life.
In conclusion, Amy Tan succeed to make a metaphor of the rules of chess game and compares it with the strategy to success in life. She can also describe the invisible strength through the chess game. She emphasizes the possession of invisible strength. Through this story, she shows that invisible strength is owned by a woman. She wants to say that a woman has a very great power, which is invisible strength.
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