In this excerpt from Amy Tan’s “Rules of the Game,” the conflict between Waverly and her mother reaches its peak. Which part of
the plot does the excerpt depict? I knew it was a mistake to say anything more, but I heard my voice speaking. “Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, then why don’t you learn to play chess.”
My mother’s eyes turned into dangerous black slits. She had no words for me, just sharp silence.
I felt the wind rushing around my hot ears. I ierked my hand out of my mother’s tight grasp and spun around, knocking into an old woman. Her bag of groceries spilled to the ground.
“Aii-ya! S t u p d girl!” my mother and the woman cried. Oranges and tin cans careened down the sidewalk. As my mother stooped to help the old woman pick up the escaping food, I took off.
Explanation: in literature, a conflict is a struggle between opposite forces, usually between a character (the main character or a very important one) and himself (internal conflict), society or another character (external conflict). The climax of a narrative is that particular point in a narrative at which the conflict or tension hits the highest point, and it often leads to the resolution (solution of the conflict). The given excerpt from Amy Tan’s “Rules of the Game" is the climax of the story, because the conflict between Waverly and her mother reaches its peak.
