The Voice from the Wall

Joy Luck Club- The Voice from the Wall

In this chapter we get to see life through the eyes of Lena St Clair, whose mother Ying-ying wrote the chapter “The Moon Lady”. Lena’s father, Clifford, is an American man, who speaks little Chinese, whereas Ying-Ying speaks little English or Chinese, mainly Mandarin. Though Lena is usually able to understand her mother’s words, their meanings are usually lost on her. Early the Chapter Lena develops a relationship with her neighbor without even speaking to her until much later. Every night, Lena hears her neighbor (a girl close to her age) arguing and screaming with her mother. Cursed with a vivid and dark imagination, Lena always imagines the neighbor girl being slaughtered or beaten, though whenever they see each other on the stairwell of their apartment complex, the girl is always perfectly fine. After a while, Ying-ying becomes pregnant. While Lena’s father is extremely happy with the pregnancy, Ying-ying shows signs of depression. The baby, a son, dies immediately after childbirth. Ying-ying, speaking in mandarin, blames herself for the death of not only this son, but another in the past. To the reader it is apparent that Ying-ying got an abortion a long time ago, and that the guilt that sprang from that made her jump to conclusions about the death of this child, but to Lena, her mother appears to be insane. Lena purposely mistranslates her mother when telling her father what Ying-ying says, trying to cover up her mother's insanity. 
Back at the apartment, Lena is told to open the door after her father hears knocking. It is the girl from next door, the one that Lena hears every night. Her name is Teresa, and she confidently tells Lena that her mother locked her out of their apartment in a heated argument and that she needs to use Lena's fire escape to sneak into her bedroom and hide until her mother gets really worried. Lena thinks this is terrible, and is worried for Teresa. That night, she hears Teresa and her mother argue again, but this time the argument is full of love and worry, and ends with the two of them crying and laughing. Lena feels comforted by this twist, happy that she was wrong. The chapter ends with a very symbolic vision. Instead of imagining Teresa being slaughtered by her mother, she sees a girl with a sword. The girl tells her mother that she must punish her with the death of a thousand cuts, and the mother closes her eyes in anticipation. She feels the pain, cries out, but when she opens her eyes, there are no cuts, no blood.