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Chinese ways and ideas played a big part in Rose’s 

life. When Rose was little, Rose would listen 

completely to her mother. She believed she always 

told the truth for most of her childhood. Her mother 

would always stress one lesson. That lesson was to 

have wood, and be able to listen to the right people 

and grow straight like her mother. But all 

throughout Rose’s life, she was too afraid of making 

the wrong decisions to make any decisions at all. 

She would listen to other people and try to decide 

what was right rather than coming up with it 

herself.

Rose’s mother, An-Mie, taught Rose many 

things when she was young. An-Mie is a very 

strong, confident, and hardworking woman who 

believes she can do anything.Rose’s character 

seems to be the exact opposite of her mother. 

She is a very dependent and a follower. She 

does not like to make her own decisions 

because she is afraid of messing up. Rose looks 

up to her mother as a leader her whole 

childhood, but as she grows older she starts to 

resent her mother’s insistence to do things her 

way, the Chinese way. As a result, Rose tries to 

look strong by going against her mother and 

marrying a white man, of whom An-Mei does 

not approve of.

Rose does not make many decisions on her own 

thoughts. She likes to listen to what other people’s 

ideas are and then decide what the best decision 

from there is. As a result, Rose becomes a very 

Americanized Chinese woman by choosing all the 

American ideas over the Chinese ones. For 

example, Rose says, " what I initially found 

attractive in Ted were precisely the things that 

made him different from my brothers and the 

Chinese boys I had dated: his brashness, the 

assuredness .... , and his opionated manner " (Tan 

117).

When Rose was little, she lost her little brother on the beach 

when he accidentally slipped in and drowned. She blamed 

herself because she was suppose to be watching him as he 

played, but she got distracted and he fell in too fast for her to 

react. Now she is too afraid of blaming herself from mistakes to 

make any decisions at all. She married a white man named Ted 

just because he was so different than most Chinese men and 

she knew he could make decisions for her, but as their marriage 

continues they begin to have problems. Ted loses a malpractice 

case and he loses his confidence and starts asking Rose to 

make decisions. Ted begins to realize that he cannot live with a 

woman who has no say in anything and he asks for a divorce, 

which finally allows her to make the right decision for herself, 

and try to keep her house. 

At Rose's point of breakthrough, Rose 

overcomes her fears and becomes a self-

confident woman and fights to keep her house. 

An-Mei is a mixture of strength and weakness. 

An-Mei's own mother gave her life to improve her 

daughters, which left a lasting impact on An-Mei. 

Now Rose follows in her mother's footsteps and 

accepts her sorrows to easily. Both Rose and An-

Mei do not have enough wood. Rose bends to 

others opinions and ideas to easily. An-Mei 

always believes she can make things right, and 

after Ted leaves Rose, Rose begins to believe she 

can make things right too. Amy Tan has 

developed a theme of mother-daughter likeness 

between generations by showing similar 

generations facing the same problems.     

Some significant ideas in rose Hsu's story are 

the fact that Rose does not like to make 

decisions. After Ted lost a serious malpractice 

suit, he forced Rose to make all decisions. 

Rose and Ted decide to get a divorce. But even 

after Rose agrees, she can't make the final 

decision and sign the papers to actually get the 

divorce.

One of the unique aspects of the stories with 

Rose is that Rose and An-Mei can never agree 

on anything because An-Mei is Chinese and 

Rose is Chinese American. For example, when 

Rose said she is going to get a divorce, An-Mei 

said, "this cannot be'. And when I say that it is 

certainly true, that our marriage is over, i 

know what else she will say: 'this cannot be"  

(Tan 116). An-Mei does not see that Rose is 

American so it makes it harder for Rose to be 

herself.  

Some strengths of Amy Tan's writing style are 

that she uses a lot of details in all her stories. 

She uses imagery and other literary techniques 

frequently. She also foreshadows very 

effectively.

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