Lena

Lena Grove is a pivotal character in William Faulkner’s 1932 novel, Light in August. She is a pregnant woman who is searching for the father of her unborn child, who has moved to another state, promising to send for her. Young and naïve, Lena is nonetheless a brave and determined woman who is trying to do right by her child and provide the structure of a family for him. Lena faces all the hardships and challenges that life sends her way in an unflinching and stoic manner, yet she does not despair. She simply soldiers on, fixed on the pursuit of her goals against all odds. The baby’s father is hardly worthy of her efforts – he is a lazy con artist who cravenly runs away instead of facing his responsibilities. Lena gives birth to her baby son in an old, rural cabin and continues on with her search undaunted. She is such a force of life herself, one can rest assured that her baby will not really need his worthless father, when he has such a mother.

Lena is a character in Amy Tan’s best-selling 1989 novel, The Joy Luck Club, which has also been adapted into a film and a play. Lena is the daughter of Ying-Ying, a girl born in China in the Year of the Tiger, whose natural spirit has been repressed by her culture. She passes on her fears to Lena, the child of her and her American husband. Lena is also born in the Year of the Tiger, but she grows to be a woman like her mother, fearful and anxious and bowing to the will of the males in her life. Trapped in a loveless marriage and emulating her mother’s behavior, Lena begins to realize how the story of her mother’s life has affected her own. At the same time, Ying-Ying is beginning to understand how her own actions, or lack thereof, have affected her daughter. It is in the power of communication, no matter how fraught with emotion, that empathy and understanding can work their healing on Lena.