44 pages • 1 hour read
Amy TanThe Valley of Amazement
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary: “The City at the End of the Sea”
The story now shifts back to Violet’s point of view in September 1926. She, Magic Gourd, and Pomelo reach the town at the base of the mountain. As promised, Charm welcomes them to her house. Once they’ve all recovered from their ordeal, Pomelo buys part of Charm’s business and remains in Mountain View. Violet and Magic Gourd make their way back to Shanghai in style.
Magic Gourd marries an old client named Harmony Chen and gives up her plans to open a courtesan house of her own. Violet goes to Loyalty and asks for a job as a translator. At first, he resists the idea, but he soon comes to realize what a valuable employee Violet is. Her strong business sense and knowledge of the English language make her an asset to his company. The two also resume their love affair, and Violet moves into Loyalty’s home. After he develops prostate cancer, she nurses him back to health, and the two get married.
Violet asks Loyalty to track down the addresses of the Ivory family, where her daughter Flora lives, and Lulu’s address in San Francisco. A halting correspondence begins between Lulu and Violet, but it grows warmer over time. Violet enlists Lulu’s help in watching over Flora. In 1929, Lulu returns to Shanghai for a visit and she reconciles completely with her daughter. She vows to keep watch over Flora and to write to Violet about the girl’s progress. Lulu rents a summer home close to the Ivory residence and soon gets to know her granddaughter. Loyalty also writes to Flora as a friend of her father’s and sends her little gifts from time to time.
In January 1939, Flora writes to Loyalty to ask for information about her birth mother. He puts her in touch with Lulu, who explains the entire family history. One day, on Flora’s insistence, Lulu brings Flora to meet Lu Shing at an art gallery in San Francisco where he displays his paintings. In a letter to Violet, Lulu reports with satisfaction that Flora realized Lu Shing’s paintings were copies and that he was a “phony artist.”
Two months later, Lulu and Flora arrange a trip to Shanghai to meet Violet. Although their first meeting is reserved, Flora eventually tells Violet about her troubled relationship with Minerva Ivory. Her stepmother lied to her throughout her life and even drugged Flora into having a forced abortion. As Violet and Flora converse, Flora recalls fragments of childhood memory. She then goes to visit her father’s grave with Violet.
By the time she’s due to return to the States, Flora is ready to forge a relationship with her birth mother. As they part, they exchange the words, “I love you.” Violet watches the ship leave and bids farewell to her past grievances.
Chapters 15 Analysis
In the book’s final chapter, written correspondence becomes vital in reestablishing the broken relationships that started the novel. Because all the major characters are churning with strong emotions relative to one another and are geographically separated by continents, letters offer the only means of talking through their grievances. Loyalty is instrumental in reconnecting Violet to her mother and daughter. The lines of communication are grudgingly opened when Violet writes her first letter to Lulu. A less fraught communication line is opened with Flora when Loyalty writes to the girl in the guise of an uncle who wants to send her a small present. Unbeknownst to him, Minerva intercepts all his subsequent letters before the girl sees them.
The tentative letters between Violet and Lulu result in a face-to-face meeting in 1929. It is doubtful that the reunion could have occurred without the written preamble to clear the air. They then join forces to watch over Flora for years to come. Lulu meets Flora directly because she doesn’t carry any emotional grudges related to her granddaughter. No letters are necessary to repair a broken relationship.
The same can’t be said for Violet’s relationship with her daughter. Loyalty acts as the go-between. His letters don’t have the intended effect because Minerva has been intercepting them for years. However, the deception backfires and provides a strong impetus to bring mother and daughter together. When Flora learns about Minerva’s scheme, she becomes so angry that it galvanizes her into requesting help from Loyalty to search out her birth mother.
After Flora’s reunion with her mother and grandmother, she proves to be a shrewder judge of character than either one. Flora isn’t fooled by counterfeit artists. When she visits Lu Shing’s art gallery in San Francisco, she instantly realizes his work is a fake and just how much damage can be created by those who pass themselves and their work off as genuine. In contemplating one of the many copies of The Valley of Amazement, Flora says, “It felt like all the truth got whitewashed with fake happiness […] only it was not happy and it was worse than fake. It was dangerous” (888). Flora is too much of a realist to long for the illusion of perfect happiness that enticed both Lulu and Violet. The novel suggests she has broken the family curse of women who fall for counterfeit art and counterfeit love.
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By Amy Tan
