MovieChat Forums > The Joy Luck Club (1993) Discussion > Rose, her daughter, and the soup

Rose, her daughter, and the soup

posted 13 years ago by avilamd
4 replies | jump to latest

Alright, I know I'm probably going to get slammed for the trivial nature of this post, but here it goes...When Rose is leaving the store with her mother and daughter, her daughter is holding a little bowl of soup. Rose tells her, (quote may not be exact) "Jennifer, give the soup to Mommy, I'm afraid you're going to spill it." Then the little girl hands it to her and Rose dumps it in the trash. At THAT moment,after it's been dumped, Rose says "Good girl." Why, why would she say that? What did the daughter do that was so good? Hand over a bowl that prevented her from getting her burned? And even if the statement was meant to reinforce her good behavior of handing it right over instead of arguing with mom, she should have said that IMMEDIATELY when Jennifer gave it to her. Saying that after the soup's been thrown out just seemed odd; it was Rose that (mom) that threw it away, not the daughter. And moreover, why would Rose care that Jeniffer spilled a little (as long as she's not burned)? since she was going to dispose of it anyway; she didn't try to eat the leftover soup and had no qualms about throwing the food away.

[–] Punctuality 13 years ago

It's funny; I think of this scene a lot too, but not quite for the reasons you mentioned.

When I first saw the film in the theatre, I thought that Jennifer wanted to eat the soup, her mom didn't want to have to clean up a spill in the car and so got her to hand over the soup so she could toss it in the garbage before they got into the car. Maybe she was saying "good girl" because Jennifer didn't kick up a fuss?

After having kids myself and viewing the movie again, I noticed that Rose seemed distracted and so most likely meant to say "good girl" at the right moment, but didn't think of it until after her task of carefully dumping the container of soup into the garbage can, as her attentions were focused on holding the bag, taking the soup container, then dumping it. As a parent, you can become obsessed with what you "should've" done.

It wouldn't have been about being burned by the soup, because if Jennifer had already had some it would've been cooled off enough for her to actually consume it. Kids won't eat hot things, so Rose's concern was the mess. Soup ain't no fun to clean up, especially from a car's upholstery. It ranks right up there with orange juice or milk.

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[–] cdz6969 13 years ago

As if the little girl isn't going to spill a hot bowl of soup while walking around in the supermarket.. Why would she have it to begin with?

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[–] rlil2001 12 years ago

I didn't understand why her daughter had the soup, either. They were out shopping. Unless it was leftover from lunch and she wanted to eat the rest, so she got it to go. Still, why carry around an open bowl of soup?

The soup was there to show a connection to the soup spilling incident in the mother's past, and the fact that Rose is most likely the reincarnation of An Mei's mother. But they could have done that in other ways.

[–] RCeditor 12 years ago

I thought that Jennifer had gotten the soup at a counter. Maybe An Mei was sitting with Jennifer at a lunch counter while Rose shopped. When Rose was ready to leave, her daughter hadn't finished her soup. Rose took the bowl and discarded it so that Jennifer wouldn't spill soup in her car.

I agree, the soup was a connection to the soup that had scarred An Mei. Rose even said to Rich, "I died... for my daughter's sake". That meant that Jennifer represented An Mei. Rose protected her daughter from the soup by discarding it. Good catch!

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