“The Voice from the Wall” and “Half and Half” tell the stories of Lena St. Clair and Rose Hsu Jordan, respectively, and in these accounts, it is revealed that both women and their mothers were unfortunately plagued with tragedy in their lives. Because Lena St. Clair’s mother, Ying-Ying, always concocted stories through which to instill fear in Lena, Lena grew up in an environment in which she feared many things and pictured morbid scenarios on a regular basis. This fear of horrible outcomes became a reality when Ying-Ying had a miscarriage. In addition to dealing with the misery that had been created in her own household, Lena could also hear from the wall in her bedroom the constant fighting between her neighbor, Teresa, and Teresa's mother. One day, when Teresa was returning to her apartment after a particularly nasty fight, Lena asked a rhetorical question, or a question asked merely for rhetorical effect and not requiring an answer, when she wondered, “How could she go back? Didn’t she see how terrible her life was? Didn’t she recognize it would never stop?” Despite this, while Ying-Ying had completely shut down and drawn into herself as if she had completely given up, Lena did everything she could to keep the family together. Her mother had lost all energy and zest for life, but Lena, who had always feared the worst possible outcome, had realized that nothing could be worse and chose to keep living for the next day.
In “Half and Half,” Rose Hsu Jordan explains the sorrows in her own childhood as she recounts the devastating loss of her little brother, Bing, when he drowned in the ocean during a family outing to the beach. Rose had been left in charge of all four of her brothers that evening and had taken her eye off of Bing for a mere second, but, in that gut-wrenching moment, he had fallen into the ocean and disappeared forever. Even though Rose felt incredibly guilty, she was eventually able to accept the loss of Bing; An-mei, on the other hand, refused to stop searching until she came to the realization that retrieving even Bing’s body was an impossibility. The two tragic stories told in this section of The Joy Luck Club reveal that Ying-Ying St. Clair, Lena St. Clair, An-mei Hsu, and Rose Hsu Jordan all suffered the terrible loss of a loved one in their lives; however, I found the way in which each woman dealt with their grief to be rather interesting. It was captivating to me that in the St. Clair family, the daughter had shown the courage to continue fighting, whereas in the Hsu family, the mother was the one who showed more resilience. To me, this simply shows that whether someone is a mother, daughter, father, or son, he or she should be willing to reach out a hand to their loved ones while they are suffering.
When An-mei Hsu lost her son, she also seemed to lose her faith; however, even though she threw her Bible under a table as an act of rejection of God, she never chose to dispose of her Bible, either. Rose commented, “My mother, she still pays attention to it. That Bible under the table, I know she sees it.” Earlier, Rose had also commented, “My mother is not the best housekeeper in the world, and after all these years that Bible is still clean white.” To me, this quote is particularly meaningful because it shows that while An-mei may have felt abandoned by God after suffering such a tragedy, she never truly lost hope in Him, for she knew that He could never leave. This reminds me of the song “He Ain’t the Leaving Kind” by Rascal Flatts. In this song, a woman loses her faith in God because she was devastated by the loss of her husband. Despite this, after a number of years, she realizes that God had never left her and returns to Him. While we all suffer tragedies in our lives, it is important to remember that we must not give up or draw into ourselves; instead, we must be resilient, and know that God is with us always.
**For some reason I was unable to upload this link, but visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s9GN9_P940 for a video of the song "He Ain't the Leaving Kind" by Rascal Flatts
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