Rules Of The Game By Amy Tan: The Curiosity Of Power
In Amy Tan’s “Rules of the Game, ” the power unleashed by Waverly reveals her dominance, which overpowers her own self and causes her to drift away from her family. The curiosity of power first comes to mind when her brother receives a chess board for Christmas. She develops a feeling about the chessboard and thinks there is a secret power hidden within. When watching her brothers play the game she says, “I watched Vincent and Winston play during Christmas week. The chess board seemed to hold elaborate secrets waiting to be untangled”. As she watches her brothers play, she discovers a power waiting to be unlocked in the board. After she discovers this, she grows anxious to play the game, and wants to unlock the secret power she sees hidden. Once her brother finally allows her to play, she wants to learn the secret moves and strategies to gain a stronger power in defeating her future opponents. After learning the basic rules of the game, she goes to outside resources to “read the rules and look up all the big words in a dictionary. She borrowed books from the Chinatown library. She studied each chess piece, trying to absorb the power each contained”.
Waverly shows her interest in the game, mainly to find power to dominate others. Because she is focused on the idea of secrets and winning, she affects herself to revolve her life only around chess. Her interest of the game causes her curiosity in power to expand even bigger. When she begins playing chess she is not the best at it. After winning numerous games, she discovers new secrets causing her to develop an arrogant and manipulative demeanor. “It is a game of secrets in which one must show and never tell. I drew a chessboard and pinned it to the wall, where at night I would stare for hours at imaginary battles. Soon I no longer lost any games or Life Savers”.
After winning games against her brothers as well as people she plays in the park, Waverly develops an arrogant personality and boasts about her wins. The wins she starts to accumulate makes her want to succeed more, and causes her to search for more secrets in the game. As she begins to boast about herself, she exposes her manipulative nature. “I would pause, suck in my lips, twirl my chosen piece in midair as if undecided, and then firmly plant it in its new threatening place, with a triumphant smile thrown back at my opponent for good measure. I no longer played in the alley of Waverly Place. I went to school, then directly home to learn new chess secrets, cleverly concealed advantages, more escape routes”, Waverly says after another match she wins. She uses her looks of a young, innocent girl to confuse and manipulate her other opponents she faces. Waverly learns she has a power of taking advantage of others, and wants to use it more to overpower other people. In addition, her many victories causes her to focus her life more on the game, which slowly creates a separation between her and Lindo.
The invisible strength she discovers she has, she uses on her mother, which breaks their bond, and causes them to drift away from each other. But, the art of invisible strength she uses, backfires on her because of Lindo. Waverly uses her strength on her parents when she says, “My parents made many concessions to allow me to practice. One time I complained that the bedroom I shared was so noisy that I couldn’t think. Thereafter, my brothers slept in a bed in the living room facing the street”. Here, Waverly uses her strength to manipulate her parents into getting what she wants. The discrete action she uses on her parents lets her think that she can continuously use the act of manipulation on her parents. This is proven wrong when she “shows face” and her use of her strength is used back on her. When Waverly and Lindo fight in the street arguing, “‘It’s not that, it’s just so obvious. It’s just so embarrassing. ’ ‘Embarrass you be my daughter?’ Her voice was cracking with anger. ‘That's not what I meant. That’s not what I said. ’ ‘What you say?’”. Her plan of using her strength backfires on her by Lindo because without knowing, Lindo has her own strength which she uses. Waverly “shows her face” and allows Lindo to be able to attack her, and creates her to become the new victim or opponent. Lindo unleashes her strength and attacks the weak spot of Waverly which makes her uneasy and confused. Once Waverly returns home from running away from their argument, she enters inside the house and walks in with her mother’s response “We not concerning this girl. This girl not have concerning for us”. From here, Lindo starts to beat Waverly in her own game. Because Waverly showed her next move, her strategy was ruined. Lindo expresses her own invisible strength that annoys Waverly because Lindo beats her in her own specialty.
Overall, the power which Waverly discovers within her, overpowers her in becoming arrogant, and leads to a disconnection between her and Lindo. Her developing curiosity of the secrets within the game let her discover her own strength. The discovery of her strength of manipulation is used back on her by Lindo which makes Waverly become stubborn. Waverly’s stubbornness then leads her to become separated from her mom which creates a division in their relationship. The power Waverly discovers is too much for her to handle, wherein the end the power overpowers her and begins to control her.
