Inability to communicate because of the generation gap is yet another theme in this novel. On a literal level, the daughter can speak very little Chinese, and her mother's English is poor. On a figurative level, the daughter grows up without anguish or sorrow, so she cannot understand her mother's painfully tragic past, and her mother knows no way that she can communicate the depths and the details of her suffering to her sheltered, fortunate daughter. This mother-daughter tension is a key to understanding the lives of the four Chinese mothers and their American daughters, who are the central characters in this novel. Using this tension, Tan explores and reveals the emotional upheaval that results when people's hopes and expectations are continually thwarted by the realities of their lives.
This prologue, set in italics, introduces several of Tan's literary techniques. Notice, for example, how she constructs her novel by using parallelisms — the repetition of similar elements. Each of the four sections of the novel begins with a brief parable, set in italics. In addition, each section contains four separate stories, each of which will parallel one another in various ways.
Tan also uses symbolism — a person, place, or object that stands for, or represents, something beyond itself, such as an abstract idea or feeling. Initially, Tan uses the swan in its traditional fairy-tale sense to symbolize transformation. As the ugly ducking of the fairy tale matured into a beautiful swan, so the old woman who was degraded by her husband in China hopes that she will be transformed in American into her own person, someone whom her daughter can respect. More important, however, the woman hopes that her daughter will transcend this possibility of gaining respect and be transformed into "a creature that became more than what was hoped for."
