Man Vs. Man In Amy Tan's Four Directions

In “Four Directions,” Tan illustrates the conflict between man vs. man. Man vs. man is expressed in Waverly’s attempts at seeking her mother’s approval. Throughout the story Waverly tries to tell her mother about her engagement but is afraid. In fear of her mother’s harsh judgements, Waverly feels that it is difficult to communicate with her mother. She fears that her mother’s piercing words will ruin her love for her fiancé, just as her words had ruined her love for her ex-husband, Marvin. She expresses her fear when she thinks “I worried for Rich. Because I knew my feelings for him were vulnerable to being felled by my mother’s suspicions, passing remarks, and innuendos” (175). Due to her mother’s past remarks she becomes fearful of the future to come and starts to doubt her new
Waverly learns that her past thoughts on her mother were just images that she came up with in her head. She came up with this conclusion when her mother responded “’Ai-ya, why do you think these bad things about me. So you think your mother is this bad. You think I have a secret meaning. But it is you who has this meaning’” (181). When her mother says “it is you who has this meaning” she is referring to Waverly thinking the worst of her mother and jumping to conclusions too quickly. The conflict of her vs. her mother isn’t resolved when Waverly tells her mother about her marriage but instead resolved when they get into a real heart to heart conversation. They talk about the Jong (father’s side) and Sun (mother’s side) family and how Waverly relates to her father’s side because they both don’t see the whole picture, but jump to conclusions quickly. From this conversation Waverly finally learns that her interpretation of her mother was wrong and that all the things her mother did was for her, so that her mother would become “invited in”/accepted by Waverly. Tan uses the conflict man vs. man to have Waverly realize that there is more to discover than