Is Helen Really Bad?

                “She waved her hand at me. One of her fingers looked broken.  ‘You see how bad the world has become,’ she said.  ‘Now I’m that way too.’

-Amy Tan, The Kitchen God’s Wife, page 217

The quote above is Wei-Wei, Pearl’s mother, narrating when Hulan, otherwise known as Helen, taking Wei-Wei home in the pedicab.  In this quote, Hulan said that she is bad.  She said this because she committed a “selfish” act of stealing the pedicab and beating away the man who had it.  This act was probably done in part out of selfishness and greed of wanting to escape the mass chaos, but she did come back for Wei-Wei.  Wei-Wei was pregnant at the time and an innocent in need of help.  Helping an innocent, especially someone who is pregnant, is a good deed.   Another part of this scenario which is not given to the reader in the quote above is that the man Hulan stole the pedicab from was the man who originally stole it from her and Wei-Wei.  Even though two wrongs do not make a right, at least she did not steal from an innocent.  Hulan did something bad by stealing something, but it was for a good cause.  This is a tricky way to base an opinion of whether someone is bad or good, but judging on the severity of what Hulan did that is considered bad and what she did that is considered good, she is still a good person.