In the reading “The Rice Husband”, by Amy Tan there are a few important characters that have a great impact on the story. One of those characters is the mother who lives in San Francisco. The mother has a strange ability to foretell bad events that will occur to or within her family. This is called Cunwang chikan, which means that one thing, will lead to another. When Lena was a child the mother saw that Lena’s future husband will not be a good one. This thought had convinced Lena that her marriage may not be as great as she thought it would be. The mother also has a tendency to always complain about everything. An example of her complaining was when she was criticizing Lena’s home. She seems very unsatisfied with the decorating decisions that were made in the house.
Another important character is Harold who is Lena’s husband. Harold is a very educated man and has a prestigious occupation. He actually made his own firm with some convincing from his wife. He makes a higher income then Lena. Therefore his decisions and opinions are considered more than Lenas. He doesn’t like cats especially their cat Mirugal. His favorite desert is Lena’s worst favored desert, ice cream.
The most significant character is Lena. Lena is a very insecure individual. She is easily convinced not only by her mother and her husband but also by her friends. For example Rose. Rose goes to therapy because of her failed marriage. When Lena had doubts about her marriage, she talked to Rose about her feelings. Rose explains that her feeling are common for women, that her relationship in her marriage is fine and that she should not dwell into her thoughts, which will make matters worse. Lena is then comforted by their conversation and thinks that her marriage is fine when in reality it is not. She often tends to keep her feelings inside. Like the situation with the ice cream. She’s hates ice cream ever since a child, yet she didn’t have the courage to tell her husband about it for years. Yes she loves and cares for her husband but she is not open with her feelings and that is where problems occur. She expects him to understand everything that goes on in her head and when he doesn’t she get s upset. This is what makes her a very emotional character.
The reading has a few important key points. One that constantly gets mentioned in the reading is Lena’s insecurity with herself. This insecurity greatly affects her marriage with Harold. Lena quotes “All I can remember is how awfully lucky I felt, and consequently how worried I was that all this undeserved good fortune would someday slip away. When I fantasized about moving in with him, I also dredged up my deepest fears: that he would tell me I smelled bad: that I had terrible bathroom habits………….I worried that Harold would someday get a new prescription for his glasses and he’d put them on one morning, look me up and down, and say, “Why, gosh, you aren’t the girl I thought you were, are you?””
Due to her insecurity with herself, Lena doubts her marriage. She is never satisfied with how things are going. She quotes, “And he looked in the rearview mirror, backing up the car, and said, “I love you too. Did you lock the door?” And just like that, I started to think, it’s just not enough.” She believes that her marriage is based all on equality. They divided the bill when they got married, or whenever they go out to dinner the bill gets split in half, regardless of how much or what each person ate. They also try to split the grocery as well as appliances expenses. Afterwards, they show their bills by labeling everything they bought. Furthermore, when one spends more than the other, the other one owes them. “Harolds already spent over a hundred dollars more, so I’ll owe him around fifty from my checking account”
Now is this a healthy marriage? Yes the concept may seem promising but in truth this marriage is not based on equality. Harold quotes on this thought of equality, “So we can eliminate false dependencies….be equals….love without obligation…” On the other hand Lena’s contradictory quote states: “Since Harold pays more, he had the deciding vote on how much the house should be.” This is a contradiction to her mentality that the relationship is equal between both of them. If they were truly equals then the income should not matter. Plus, important decisions such as those to deal with the house should be discussed between the both of them not by only the one who has the higher salary. However, since Harold makes more money he is automatically the superior one in the relationship. Thus this concept of equality between the both of them is false.
It is not doubted the love and care that Lena and Harold both have for each other, but how well do they know about one another. Plus how honest are they with themselves and the other. For example, Lena does not address her doubts or concerns about the marriage to Harold, she just keeps it bottled in. Are these concerns considered normal as Rose claims? Or are these concerns unhealthy for the marriage and to what extent is it unhealthy?
2 comments:
I think these concerns are normal to a certain point because Rose tells Lena that her therapist told her not to blame her ethnicity and culture until she remembered an article she read about baby boomers and how they "expect the best and when we get it we worry that maybe we should have expected more, because it's all diminishing returns after a certain age". Lena thought that the best for her was to marry Harold whom she loves, in which she would get the best because Harold seemed to have a good income. But now Lena feels like its all diminishing because since they split their ever bills beginning from their wedding, she feels like what she expected(which was happiness, love and caring in a marriage), she feels like she is getting less as the days, weeks and months pass by. She was insecure to begin with so it doesnt help that she feels this way. I think its not healthy anymore because there never was any equality, which Lena is beginning to see clearer now. It is not healthy because in a marriage that is when both forces combine to make one, one life, one love, one equality(Lena+Harold=1), one bill! For a marriage to be based like this, it is not healthy, that is not the definition of a marriage but instead of maybe dorm buddies. Love come first, not whos equal or not. MICHELLE MELARA
Good job on the blog!
I think that the concerns that Lena keeps bottled up makes her marriage unhealthy. It's important to have communication in a marriage because one cannot read the other's mind. If she had faced her problems in the beginning and told Harold what she dislikes, than she would not have ended up in the situation that she was. Towards the end Lena finally saw that it was not normal for a couple to split everything exactly in half. She learned that Harold was cheap and that he did not really love her at all.
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