Week #6 Blog Post

Hi, Karen Chau here.

In "Rules of the Game," Amy Tan writes the story through the perspective of a young girl. However, the story was told through a flashback, and the narrator sounds much older than a seven-year-old. Her reflection provides very detailed observations about the past that pertain to the scenes, her family, other characters, and her feelings. This helps the reader visualize the scenes and understand each character through their actions rather than words. There was a good mix of showing vs. telling in this story. The narrator also analyzes the game of chess thoroughly. She says, "I learned about opening moves and why it's important to control the game early on..." (502). In particular, I found that her logical reasoning was much too high for a young child. Therefore, the transition between the narrator's voice when she was a child and the narrator's voice when she is reflecting upon her past is a bit muddled.