The Joy Luck Club Chapter 4

That's right, "The Moon Lady" is the name of this chapter!

This chapter tells the story of Ying-Ying and how she was a young girl going to the celebration of the Moon Lady with her family. She does not seem interested with all the formalities and wants to just be a little girl, playing with her shadow. Once the celebration begins at the end of the day, Ying-Ying becomes frightened falls off the boat she is on and falls into the river. She is afraid that she will drown, but by accident is rescued by fishermen who catch her in their nets. She tries to point to her family, but she has become lost from them. She eventually ends up watching a play about the Moon Lady and how she became trapped on the moon. It tells the old LEGEND of how she stole the peach that would  bring eternal life from her husband and how she can only see him one day each year. Ying-Ying tells the Moon Lady her wish. Her wish was to be found.

The beginning of the chapter is Ying-Ying talking about the present and how she has lost herself, which launches her retelling of the tale where she wished to be found. She says, "And I want to tell her this: We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing, unheard and not hearing, unknown by others."

I found that quote very deep, but I am not exactly sure what she means...

In the part about being lost, I was not sure if she means that she is lost from what she is supposed to be doing, or perhaps lost from her virtues, or what she believed was right, thus feeling as if she is lost from herself. On another hand (because there can be more than one interpretation, more than two hands are necessary) from the fact that she is talking about her daughter, how they are lost from each other and the generations of traditions that are no longer a part of their lives. Another hand could say that this is meant to be taken literally, but that is balderdash for they are not blind, deaf, invisible people who don't know where they are.

I believe that in any of the aforementioned cases (except the last one of course) it shows that Ying-Ying needs some guiding force to help find what has been lost, and that she hopes to do the same for her daughter.