Comparing Rules Of The Game 'And Langston Hughes' The Joy Luck Club

Themes of conflicts between mother and child come up often in literature. For example, in “Rules of the Game”, and excerpt from “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan, the complicated relationship between Waverly Place Jong and her mother is shown as Waverly becomes a chess champion at only 8 years old. Similarly, in Langston Hughes’ poem “Mother to Son” we see a mother giving her son life advice on how to overcome obstacles and keep climbing, based on personal experience. Both of these works of literature showcase mothers almost demanding things of their child in an attempt to help them, and ___, which all ties together in the mother/child theme. However, that motherly advice can be taken the wrong way and cause the child to be anxious, self conscious and not too trusting of their mother.
Namely, in “Rules of the Game”, Waverly’s mother “had a habit of standing over [her] while [she] plotted out [her] games.” Waverly confronts her mother about this by telling her she “can’t practice when [she] stand there like that”, subsequently, her bitter mother subsequently vitriolically makes loud noises with the pots and pans to purposely annoy her diligent daughter. Likewise, in “Mother to Son”, the Mother is encouraging her son to keep climbing the metaphorical stairs in an almost assertive way. When she says “So, boy, don’t you turn back,” (line 14) she says it in a domineering way, as if she’s expecting so much of her son. The theme of mother and child is evident in these two pieces because they show one element--the mother expecting too much of the child-- of that theme in the story. However, this theme doesn't only bring forward negative