The Joy Luck Club Chapter 9

"Rice Husband" is focused on Lena St. Clair. I thought this picture would be appropriate:

A bowl of rice!

It is weird how her mother seems to have a knowledge of what is going to happen because of observations she makes in the environment around her. I don't know if it is some supernatural power or merely just coincidence, but it is certainly uncanny.

The chapter basically describes Lena's experiences with her mother's "gift" and how she always seemed to be right and then how she met Harold, her husband.

This brings us to an interesting point.... ANOTHER CASE OF A FAILING MARRIAGE!!!

This is the second of the Joy Luck Club daughters who has a failing marriage! This is kind of shocking, really. Honestly, why can't any of them seem to find a guy with whom they are truly able to be in love  and not have problems?!

Lena's mother points out at putting something else upon the table in the house will cause unbalance and cause the flower to die. This represents Lena's marriage. Once she puts out how she feels about the little lists that she and Harold make, it has been too much stress on the table of the marriage and caused an unbalance, leaving the flower to crash to the floor and die. This IMAGERY provides for the effect to show how the marriage is failing and will probably come to an end soon.

This chapter reminds me also of a matter that is important to me: equal treatment/anti-discrimination based on gender. It feels like Lena is being treated less than equal because she is always forced to receive less payment and not move up in the business world simply because her husband is her boss. Harold explains that it is because he doesn't want it to seem like her is giving her special benefits because she is his wife, but it seems like he is limiting her more than he should. If he truly cared about them being equals, he would allow her to work by his side and receive the same payment as he does, because it seems like his job and hers are intertwined. The whole "equal" thing is just a flop; it is just a word until is actually applied. If they are husband and wife, they should SHARE what they have TOGETHER and not act like they are from separate households. I would certainly feel unloved if my husband made me fill out those stupid sheets to see what money I had spent in relationship to his spending. 

In reference to Harold, Lena says, "He said he valued our relationship too much. He didn't want to contaminate it with money." To me, it seems that Harold has done exactly what he did not want to do. He let money become a concerning factor over the relationship because of the way he has made this attempt to be "equals". It just goes to show that attempts to prevent bad things have to be thoroughly thought out!