Essays on Amy Tan

The media exists as a particularly invasive as well as informative source of stereotyping that in an attempt to remain objective allows the subjectivity of others to give way to over-generalized beliefs of other cultures. While many feel it necessary to blame the various media sources that feed the fires of stereotyping the media is meant only as the vessel and nothing else. This belief however has been altered throughout the years as the beliefs and practices of several cultures have been categorized and rudely stuffed into the stereotypes that society has forced upon them. A perfect example of ...

Amy Tan writes speaks to the ways in which the culture, traditions and the language differ across regions. The narrator in the story shares similar experiences as Tan’s mother was also an immigrant who migrated from China. But there is conflict between the two as the daughter is less receptive to embracing the idea that her mother has for her and her assimilation into a new culture. The truth is that the narrator’s mother represents the typical mother in the society who wishes that her child will get the best of everything that life has to offer. ...

“Two kinds” is a short story authored by Amy Tan. Tan creates the romantic concept of cultural origins and touches on lost ethnic essence to reconfigure and radically undercut notion of ethnic essence. The story is about a mother and daughter who abandon their culture to embrace the American Dream in the hope that anyone in America can succeed. At the root of the story is protagonist’s interpersonal dissonance brought about by the phenomenon of mass immigration. Tan manages to bring out clearly deception of complexities in mother-daughter relationships but focusing on disruptive distance between mothers originating from ...

There are a number of differences between the eastern and western cultures. These differences have always existed in eastern and western cultures. The differences in both cultures are clearly visible in terms of lifestyle, thinking, dressing, eating and even expressing emotions and love to each other. There are also differences in the power of love between Eastern and Western Culture and the same has been reflected in various films and novels. This paper proposes a discussion on how eastern and western cultures have different power of love because of three main reasons: firstly, because family is considered as the ...

I was fourteen when I first heard of the “F” word. I was walking down the street to a friend’s house when a man standing by the corner suddenly said it to my face. This happened in the UK where I was taking up an English course. I did not know what the word meant, but by his facial expression I knew that it was nothing good. At this time, I was just starting to learn English, and the word did not appear in the textbooks. ...

Authors come up with great works by following a set of instructions that help their workflow. There are various ways an author might categorize their work such as problem-solving, attention and awareness. The information should come out clearly for the reader to understand and keep up with the author’s ideas. For that to take place, the author needs to streamline the ideas and give depth to it for the reader to experience. A good flow brings about the best read or understanding of a topic and excites the reader to keep looking for the author’s other works and similar ...

The essays titled this old house and fish cheeks are very interesting in terms of the manner in which they convey the message intended by their respective authors to the audience. The essay this old house takes more of a rather detailed and vivid description in order to bring the author’s message home. In this particular essay, the author seems very interested in ensuring that the audience develops a clear mental picture of the house in question. The description is very vivid and comprehensive that it leaves little to imagination. The author focuses on the minute details of the house ...

“I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mother’s “limited” English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality if what she had to say. That is, because she expressed them imperfectly her thoughts were imperfect. And I have plenty of empirical evidence to support me: the fact that people in department stores at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they did ...

Two Kinds by Amy Tan

In the article, “Two Kinds,” by Amy Tan, it showed how a mother came from Vietnam and settled in the US with her daughter and husband. In her narration, Amy Tan remembered how her mother had high expectations for her and her life. Her mother was very positive about her daughter’s future in America and had high hopes and expectations about her and her ability to achieve greatness. She badly wanted her daughter to be a child prodigy, much like the ones that she saw on the television on a daily basis. Her mother did not seriously believe that she was ...

Introduction

Wong, Carol, Jacquelynne, Eccles (1198) argue that, it takes a lot of courage to stand tall and defend ones belief and values. He cited examples using several people like Martin Luther king who stood to fight racism and ethnicity in America. They further argue that, helloes must have faced several adversities on their way to prominence. They mention of Jesus who died n the cross for all people without discriminating the gender, race, ethnicity or age. Jesus was stereotyped but yet he stood firm to accomplish his mission here on earth. The study shows that, the Black Americans face several ...

In Mother Tongue, Amy Tan explains three simultaneous aspects and types of Englishes, which she believes are commonly spoken or used in different cultures. She explains these Englishes to include the “simple English,” which she claims that she spoke to her mother; the “broken English,” which her mother used with her; the “Watered down English,” which represents her translation of her mother’s Chinese. The author also includes in her essay the English she imagines to be her mother’s translation of Chinese if her mother could speak perfect English. This essay has something magical about it because of ...

‘Instructor’s Name’

Comparison & Contrast The obvious similarity between, Mary Mebane's "The back of the bus," and Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue", is the theme of the problems faced by the racial minority and their plight in America. However if we dwell deep we find that, both the authors have stressed upon the different aspects of this problem, and have taken a different approach in highlighting the sociological implications of racism/ethnicity. While Mary Mebane has talked about lack of equal status (both legal/social) for American Blacks during the era in which she grew up, Amy Tan’s essay deals with the way ...

Two Kinds is a short story by Amy Tan in the book The Joy Luck Club. Tan writes about the intricacy of a daughter and mother relationship who migrated from China to America. The short story is about a Chinese-American girl named Jing-mei. Jing-mei lived in American and her mother believed that, as long as one lives in America, he/she can be anything she could ever wish to be and therefore, she was working hard to find her daughter’s talent. Jing-mei’s mother constantly tests her daughter for any talent, but any time she tries, no talent is found. The lack ...

Introduction

The fact that literary works are aimed at mirroring the reality of the human society whether local or global means that there will be a point of convergence among them. The mirroring of the reality of the human society is informed by the need to facilitate and sustain debates that will lead to the finding of solutions to better human society and life. The converse is also true that literary artistes have their works colored by personal, ideological and sociocultural settings and because of this, literary works will diverge on structure, ideas and themes. The case is exemplified by the ...

In 2008, Asian Americans make up 5% of the population in the United States. Despite a manageable number, the Asian American community is largely misunderstood (Le). In an attempt to comprehend them, we would look into a material that portrays what their culture is about. With this, the movie that would be discussed in this paper is The Joy Luck Club. The movie is based on the novel of the same name written by Amy Tan. She is an Asian American. The movie portrayed the significant American Dreams of the Chinese Americans and their descendants. This indicated the culture divergence between ...

Two Kinds is a story found in the book ‘The Joy Luck Club’, written by Amy Tan. The short story is about the conflict between a mother and her daughter who are clearly separated by things such as age, culture and perception. Jing-Mei Woo is the main character, and it is clear from the beginning that the high expectations her mother has over her affect her way of life. Through the unfolding events that the author gives, we get to understand the course that events took. In essence, whereas Woo saw Jing-Mei as a prodigy in piano playing, Jing-Mei detested this internally ...

Literature as a Way to Express Immigration and Ethnicity

When exploring the varying attributes of immigration and its connection to ethnicity and national identity, one of the best ways to examine these issues is through literature. While literature does not provide the objectivity of facts and figures, narrative fiction in literature provides endless avenues for subjective, thematic discussion about the broader emotional and human issues surrounding topics like immigration. A number of fantastic works tackling themes of immigration help to reach the core of the issues that immigrants must face in their new country, particularly as they relate to generation gaps and cultural acclimation. Social sciences and ...

Please type your name here

Please type your Instructor name here English

The mother-daughter relationship – probably one of the robust bonds of the nature, is displayed in a distorted manner in The Rocking Horse Winner of D.H. Lawrence and also Amy Tan’s ‘Two Kinds.’ Both these short stories explain how the parental-love and the relationship between the parent and children get strained. This essay attempts to explore the ways in which parental-love has been portrayed in both these short stories. An atmosphere that is full of unconditional love, ease and permanence is one that is optimal for the growth and development of a ...

Introduction

Change in culture brings in the element of choice about the way people live and matters that affect the family in ways they did not expect. It means that change comes into the family relationship, which is blended with the culture that was not there before. Like in the story, A Pair Of Tickets, when Jing-mei came to China with her father to see her relatives, the emotional and the essence of belonging in the family is seen when she first arrived and when she saw her relatives (Pew Research Center, 57). However, despite Jing-mei and her ...

PART 1: Outline

P 1: The author defines how she is not an expert in the English language although she tries to draw a picture in the mind of the readers as to what her essay is going to be about.

P 2: She introduces how she perceives language and how she uses it every day.

P 3: She points out how her English might be different from others especially when she talks with family members like her mother and her husband. P 4: She gives an example on how the English language she uses with her family appears to be an intimate connection that they share making it an English format only they can understand. ...

The story by Amy Tan and that by Jasmin Darznikboth talk about languages. For this reason, they come in handy in helping deduce the importance of language to an individual. Language is one very vital tool for the purposes of communication. According to Amy Tan, language is a way in which one can understand another person. Conversely, every living being has a language that he or she understands clearly. From the point of birth, human beings begin learning a particular language. The language learnt at the time of birth is the language that the person’s guardians speak. This is the mother ...

Tradition and culture is an important theme in immigrant literature, especially between generations. There is a certain anxiety that develops in the relationship between parents and children of immigrant cultures; the younger generation is eager to shuck the exotic, alienating traditions of their parent’s host nation in order to fit in, while the older generation fears the ending of the traditions that helped define who they are and their culture. Meanwhile, these children of immigrants maintain a certain longing for their culture’s traditions, creating a metaphysical tug-of-war that occurs within these divided family dynamics. These tensions and anxieties are reflected ...

Critique Essay on the First Section of the ‘Joy Luck Club’ – Presentation of the first four chapters in terms of their context, plot and writing technique– Reflections drawn on the reading of these four chapters [The author’s name]

Abstract

This paper will present you with the critique essay on the First Four Chapters of the ‘Joy Luck Club’. The essay will present you with an overview of the plot of ‘The Joy Luck Club’ and will emphasize on the plot, narrative technique and characters of the first four chapters. Each chapter is a different story which is combined to ...

The short stories, Two Kinds by Amy Tan and Powder by Tobias Wolff, seem to be autobiographical accounts of their childhood memories—Tan of her strict mother and Wolff of his estranged father. While the stories may contain some true elements from their youth, these stories are still fiction and seem to contain a lot of wishful thinking on the part of the authors, a wish that somehow things could have been better. As an adult, one can view his or her childhood past in better—and perhaps more grateful—perspective. On cannot be who he or she is without his ...

In the present day American society, children are raised in different families with each family having different views about the education and academics of their children, how to help these children become successful later in life, and the role of parents in raising these children. While reviewing two articles: “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” and “Two Kinds” by Amy Chua and Amy Tan respectively, this will provide the explanatory analysis that seeks to find the similarities and differences in these articles. This paper focuses on the narrations of the authors of the articles to determine importance of parenting and ...

Identity in literature is as critical as the formation of personalized and psychoanalytic evaluations. Identity is a concept that revolves upon various disciplines with a particular bias to psychology and self-study. The smithereens that define a person in terms of characters and idiosyncratic nuances make a person different from each other. Often, such uniqueness emerges in the form of language use as well as cultural orientations. In essence, the measure of language is vital in extracting the dimensions of literary studies. Many writers identify the linguistic contributions that social paradigms play in language and identity crises (Plath 431). This paper reviews a variety of ...

The stereotypes and bias have always put the minorities in the corner of the society where the dominant culture looks upon the members of such social groups with a vague outlook which in fact demeans the cultural root of the minority and challenges the tenets of humanity and equality among the members of the human race. Champion of the World by Maya Angelou and Fish Cheeks by Amy Tan explores the psyche of the individuals who belong to such minorities and create literary representation of the thoughts and views of the members of the communities in regard to the dominant ...

Introduction

Language is an important aspect of human beings that helps in shaping the identity of an individual or a certain group of people. People from a particular region or community are able to identify persons from another different community based on the uniqueness of their language dialect or accent. When a person speaks their mother tongue, other people can easily know the specific nationality or cultural background. They are therefore able to identify them as different. This way, language shapes a person’s or community’s identity, especially where people are interacting in a mainstream culture and/or a standard language. It is important to discuss ...

Language Is The Level By Which We Navigate Through Life

Fredrick Douglas in his essay “Learning to Read and Write.” Reflects upon how he learned literacy with no teacher. Amy Tan’s essay deals with her discovery of not just speaking Chines and English, but speaking two different Englishes depending on context. In language, we learn from the world around us. In my personal experience of growing up in South Korea, I first learned to speak Korean, and did not even realize that there were other languages until I was older, when I was then taught English in school. While I do well with English, I do not feel ...

The film, The Joy Luck Club, based on Amy Tan’s novel, portrays the story of four women and their daughters who eventually migrate from China to America. The story goes on to delve deep into how they are dissociated from their origins. These women live in a culture and time that is vastly different from the one in which they were themselves brought up. The four older ladies meet once a week to play mahjong and they name their group as the ‘Joy Luck Club’. During the meeting they talk about stories of their respective families and grandchildren. They ...

Compare and contrast

The following short stories have been analyzed and compared in this essay: ‘The Rocking Horse Winner’ by D.H Lawrence and ‘Rules of the Game’ by Amy Tan. As the very titles suggest, these stories are in strong connection with games. But when one goes through the story, it becomes evident that these are actually manifestations of the strong emotions a player and his folks have for the game and especially, victory. Also, these stories teach that being too passionate about victory or glory of triumph can be derogatory for mental peace as well as overall quality of life. ‘The Rocking Horse ...

Summary of “Mother Tongue”

In the essay “Mother Tongue” the American writer Amy Tan gives her personal account of the different types of English that she has dealt with throughout her life. She is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and was brought up in California: in her text she recognizes that because of this combination, and especially due to her job, language has always been a constant subject of analysis. It was the fascination about it that drove her to spend significant time in thinking of how any style of communication can affect the way we create images and express ourselves with complex thoughts. ...

The Joy Luck Club (1993) was based on Amy Tan’s 1989 novel and deals with issues of culture, assimilation and generation conflicts between a group of four Chinese mothers and their Americanized daughters. All four women in the club had emigrated from China to the U.S. after World War II, and met after church to play Chinese mahjong every week. In reality, they had little joy or luck, and no expectations, only the hope that their children would have better lives than theirs. By the Confucian standards which the mothers learned from childhood, there were very definite differences in ...

Amy Tan’s ‘Two Kinds’, tentatively so named reminds us there will always be a difference between how parents view their kids and how the kids view themselves. While neither of the ideas may turn out to be true in the end, as it is only impossible to predict what future one holds, there will eventually be a continuum between the ideas when we realise we are not too different from what our parents thought us to be. Amy Tan’s short story marks the natural progression of conflict between parents and children and its profundity lies both in the choice ...

English Literature

It should be entirely up to the child to choose which path they wish to take in life. Granted, that choice may need to be guided by the child’s parents or role models but ultimately, their decisions should be their own. In her novel, The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan addresses the relationship between children and their parents and the expectations which the latter lays out for the former. In her case, Tan is Chinese American and has experienced a number of tensions between her Chinese parents’ designs for her life and her own. This idea of two generations, ...

What is the speaker’s situation in Snyder’s ‘The Late Snow and Lumber Strike of the Summer of Fifty-Four’? Where is he at the end of the poem and what does he resolve to do?

The speaker’s situation in Snyder’s poem is that he is out of work and drifting. His situation has been caused by the snow falling unexpectedly in the summer and a strike by lumber workers. The situation is so bad that “Whole towns shut down” (line 1). Out of work, the , there is little road traffic and the speaker relies on hitching ...

‘Mother Tongue’ by Amy Tan is part personal memoir, part reflection on the “broken English” of her mother. Tan traces her own reaction to her mother’s use of English. As a child she was often embarrassed by her mother’s spoken English skills. As she was growing up she admits “I was ashamed of my mother’s English.” She describes with some humor making telephone calls on her mother’s behalf, pretending, for the sake of the call, that she was her mother. But she admits to feeling uncomfortable with calling her mother’s use of English “broken” or “ ...