Mother Tongue by Amy Tan Essay

veryday life, conflicts arise that pose the decision of whether or not to tell the truth. In the New York Times article titled “How Honesty Could Make You Happier”, Judi Ketteler explores the effect being truthful has on her own morale and happiness/satisfaction. Ketteler’s 6-year-old daughter once claimed that telling truths made her feel “gold in her brain”. Inspired by this, Ketteler decided to test her daughter’s theory by keeping a truth journal. For several months, she recorded any…

Amy Tan wrote a short story, “Two Kinds”, about a Chinese immigrant mother and her 1st generation American born daughter. Centering around the mother and daughter’s relationship during her childhood in Chinatown, SanFrancisco and into her adulthood. This story is written in the daughters Jing-Mei ‘June’ perspective. Specifically the time when her mother signed her up piano lessons. It had all started because, Suyuan, her mother, wanted her to have a better life than she had in China, because…

Two Kinds is a short story written by Amy Tan. It is centered around a family (the Mother and Daughter in particular) that moves from China to the United States of America in hopes that their daughter will one day grow up to be a star. The Mother not knowing where Jing-mei’s (the daughter) talents lie decides to test her in various subjects like geography and arithmetic however, Jing-mei does not accel in any of these areas so her mother, after seeing a Chinese girl about the same age as…

Apple Pie Fourth of July: Picture Book Analysis The picture book Apple Pie 4th of July. Written by Janet S. Wong and illustrated by Margret Chodos-Irivine, is a piece of literary work that presents itself with many important themes that any child may, at one point in their early lives, find themselves struggling with. Wong does a very excellent job of trying openly address the issue that is confliction of identity and of having to conform to societal ideals or in our protagonist’s case the idea…

Everybody goes through major conflicts. It’s a part of life. It could be as small as what clothes you should wear today, or it could be as big as what college you should go to. Conflicts can arise from anything. In The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, many of the characters go through internal and external conflicts that greatly affect their life. Eventually, they resolve that conflict. For example, the relationship between Lindo Jong and Waverly Jong has some conflicts that go along with it. They…

struggles, and the threat of deportation, while Kwon discusses the challenges of passing as American adults, shielding parents from racialized nativism, and posing like middle-class adults. In Dreby’s article, she partook in interviews with the mothers of the home first, then the children aged 5-15. Through these interviews, she found that the most damaging effect on children due to forced separation was the sudden shift of having two parents in the…

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a novel written by Lisa See about Chinese life and culture in the 1800s. Not only is this book about life in general but mainly the hardships and struggles of being a woman and living within a culture such as the ancient one depicted in the novel. Being born in China in the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, Lily was exposed to a lot of Chinese history originating from various ancient dynasties in Chinese history. (thesis) As people have learned over time, not…

the mood and understand what is going on in the book more. When Carla looked into the sky to see how far she has to go in The Same Sky, she also looks into the sky to see how far she has come. Also in that book, Alice looks into the sky to see her mother that has passed when she visits in Colorado. In The Secret Language of Sisters, both of the sisters look into the sunset after the craft fair after taking the picture in the last scene. All incorporate the characters looking into the sky in the…

the hardships that Tan and her mother deal with she enjoys “the challenge of disproving assumptions made” about her. (4) Since Tan has experienced the limits and stigmas that were made of her mother because of her broken English, she was determined to overcome those barriers herself. She majored in English and became a writer, but as she became better she no longer thought of language “Like others,” that “have described it to people as ‘broken’ or ‘fractured’ English.” (2) Tan began to shift in…

Can you survive in the woods, alone, in the cold? In order to survive in conditions like those you have to have extreme survival skills. In the articles “My escape from N.K.”, “Trapped,” and the movie “Lone Survivor,” these characters had these skills to survive. It takes courage, endurance, and intelligence to be a survivor. Courage is used in survival because if you don’t believe in yourself then you won’t think that you are going to survive. Courage is used in the story, “My escape from…