In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan's purpose behind the introduction for the section, The Twenty Six Malignant Gates, is to show the relationship between mother and daughter and how the mother is always just there to try and protect their daughters from all of the bad things that can occur to them. The next two chapters to this section of the book, Rules of the Game and The Voice from the Wall, are all foreshadowed by the introduction. In the introduction, the mother warns her daughter to not leave on her bike because she will be out of her sight. After the daughter does not listen, she falls off of the bike, "And the girl ran outside, jumped on her bicycle, and in a hurry to get away, she fell before she even reached the corner, "(87). This shows that daughters need their mothers to be protected. Without them there, then they would be lost and make many mistakes.
This is somewhat similar to what happens in Rules of the Game because the daughter, Waverly abandoned her family, and when she came back home that night, her family ignored her and ate without her, "We not concerning this girl. This girl have not concerning for us, " (100). Waverly left her family and basically did not have any concern for them . She was without her mother at that time. When she came home, her mother told the family to not mind her because she had done the same. Without her mother, Waverly was lost and her family began to not concern her.
In The Voice from the Wall, the mother of Lena St. Clair was constantly trying to protect her from harm. When Lena and her mom walked down to the store, a man tried to attack Lena's mom, and after that, she was so shooken up, that she held on to her daughter the whole time. When Lena tried to get away, the mother reacted quick, "She grabbed my hand back so fast I knew that instant how sorry she was that she had not protected me better, " (108). The daughter needed guidance and protection form her mother. The letting go of the hand symbolized how at some time, the mother must learn to let go, but at that moment, she had to protect her daughter from anything bad that might happen to her.
