Rice Husband

Why don't you stop it?

Focusing on : Rice Husband

Through reading about Lena's eating disorder, I was able to learn a little bit more about the thoughts of people who have eating disorders. On page 167, when Lena says, " And I remember wondering why it was that eating something good could make me feel so terrible, while vomiting something terrible could make me feel so good," I became confused and also wondered why she thought this way. I came to realize that the way an anorexic person ate was not the only thing that differed them from other people, but that the way they thought about things was much more complex-especially about food. They believed that eating food that tastes good is terrible, while throwing up that "terrible food" is good. Someone like me, who has nothing against strawberry ice cream, would never truly be unable to understand their complicated, analytical thoughts. One other scene that made me react was the scene in which Lena said that after " six months of dinners, five months of post-pardinal love-making, and one week of timid and silly love confession," they got married, I felt frustrated towards the fact that society seemed to support sex before marriage. The message that I seemed to get out of this passage was, "As long as you don't get pregnant before you're married, you can have sex."

One phrase that describes the relationship between Harold and Lena is "mutual understanding, " or in other words, run on the basis that both people are equals and are in the relationship on mutual terms not emotional. Though Harold may say things like, "Well, I know our marriage is based on a lot more than a balance sheet.A lot more, " I believe that the truth is that their relationship is in fact based on only a little more than a balance sheet. For example, in the scene in which Lena says, "I love you," to Harold he merely answers, "I love you too. Did you lock the door?" thinking only about work, giving a thoughtless reply. Also, as Lena mentions herself she says, "..how fair Harold is to everybody except me...so really, we're equals, except that Harold makes about seven time more than what I make. He knows this too..." supporting the fact that Harold may say one thing but really mean another thing, sometimes without even thinking. I came to the conclusion that their relationship was a "mutual understanding," through scenes like these and also because almost every single page of their story mentioned money, not love.

One writing technique that Amy Tan uses in this chapter is foreshadow. An example of this is shown on page 168, where it reads, "I didn't get Arnold. I got Harold." Knowing that Arnold is a not so clear-skinned, burden to Lena, readers get a sense that Harold is worse than Arnold, a person who Lena probably hates to death. Her use of foreshadow helps improve the story in that it makes readers guess what will happen next, letting readers create "bridges" between different scenes. Tan's use of foreshadow, in the above quote, also helped improve the story in that it revealed the way Lena felt about Harold even before there was any mentioning of Harold. Her input of "I didn't get Arnold. I got Harold," stuck in my head throughout the story and made me look at Harold negatively, making me biased towards everything he said and did.

This chapter connects to allegory in many ways. For example, just like the mother in the allegory, Ying-Ying, sees "bad omens in everything," and tells Lena about a marble end table that seems unbalanced, just like her marriage life. Like Ying-Ying, the mother in the allegory also warns her daughter about a household item, in this case a mirror, and how putting it at the foot of the her bed will make all her "marriage happiness...bounce back and turn the opposite way." Ironically,in both stories, the daughters come to realize that what their mothers are telling them are in fact accurately, strangely true.