What is the tone of "The Rules of the Game" by Amy Tan?

When thinking about the tone of a short story we can also
consider the content of the story to help us determine what tone is adopted. This short
story, like "Two Kinds", features the conflict between a Chinese mother who
has emigrated to the States and her daughter, born in the States, who wants to forge an
individual identity for herself. The tone can thus be said to capture the increasing
resentment of Waverley against her mother for her insistence of showing her off but also
her increasing defiance and stubbornness in her desire to be her own person. To me, a
key passage is at the end of the story, when Waverley imagines a chess game to explore
the conflict between herself and her mother:

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In my head, I saw a chessboard with sixty-four
black and white squares. Opposite me was my opponent, two angry black slits. She wore a
triumphant smile. "Strongest wind cannot be seen," she
said.

This imagery and the
tone employed shows the reader how Waverley feels and views her mother's intrusion - she
is depicted as a dangerous, frightening figure with "two angry black slits". The very
last line of the story, "I closed my eyes and pondered my next move", seems to capture
the defiance expressed by Waverley throughout as she considers what her next move in
this "game" will be to beat her opponent and achieve
independence.