Rules of the Game - Krista Smathers

Amy Tan uses techniques of detailed characterization and sensory imagery to insinuate the theme of her story and paint the setting.  The descriptions Tan employs often use sensory appeal to emphasize the sight, smell, or even taste of the world surrounding Waverly.  One such example is when she describes the smell Waverly experiences every morning: "I could smell the fragrant red beans as they were cooked down to a pasty sweetness."  This helps highlight the cultural niche that the majority of the story takes place in.  Tan uses dialogue and Waverly's youthful perspective to characterize the mother.  The curtness and protectiveness of Waverly's mother's actions illustrate her as a woman unwilling to sacrifice cultural values.  These two techniques lend themselves to the over-arching theme of the story, that lessons learned in one area of life can be applied to another, by building the constrained, culturally specific, highly regulated, impoverished, introspective environment Waverly lives in.