The short story “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan explains a mother and daughter relationship that has many differences within a conflict in the story. The narrator demonstrates that the mother and the daughter do not agree with the same aspect on life. Since the mother wants her daughter to be perfect, the daughter refuses to make her mother’s wishes come true. Her mother wanted the narrator to become the perfect traditional daughter, but the narrator’s differences triggered with her mother. An indication from the story is, “Unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be, I could only be me” (137).
The Significance of Motherly Sacrifice Many people take the sacrifices that parents make for them for granted. Specifically, many mothers give up important aspects of their lives for their children. Khaled Hosseini, author of A Thousand Splendid Suns demonstrates the significance of motherly sacrifice in several different ways through Nana, Laila, and Mariam.
The narrator is currently unable to take care of her own child, one of her main responsibilities in life, because of her postpartum depression. Motherhood has been the cause of her mental trauma, and said trauma makes it difficult to fulfill her maternal duties. With her inability to take care of her child, she has even less of a role in the family than she previously held. In “Woman,” Kate Austin discusses how men gained their higher standing because of maternity. She states, “ A woman will bear anything for the sake of her children.
The domestic sphere is a confinement towards both women, in the Yellow Wallpaper, the symbolism of the wallpaper and how it, “Becomes bars!” (Gilman) shows us how she felt physically and emotionally trapped by her role that she was unable to fufil. Whilst Curley’s wife expresses this through dialogue once again, “Think I don’t like to talk to somebody ever’ once in a while. Think I like to stick in that house alla time” (Steinbeck, page 77).
(pg 40) Edna finds the role of a mother being lackluster and only impeding her from awakening her inner consciousness. She realizes it would only bring her imprisonment and the lack of independence. She denies the role of a mother to carry out duties and responsibilities for her family rather pursue her dreams she longed for. While at Grand Isle while sitting on the front porch, Adele is sewing winter clothes for her children, although winter is far ahead.
She takes personal responsibility for all of her daughter’s needs, and ensures that she is the only person that her granddaughter will ever need for anything. Old Woman Magoun’s over-protectiveness of her granddaughter Lily, creates a co-dependent relationship, where Lily is so fully reliant on her grandmother that she cannot see the destructive behaviour that her grandmother is employing, and where her grandmother is unable to fathom anyone else having her. Old Woman Magoun’s protectiveness means that she is extra cautious of who Lily comes into contact with and what she allows her to do. Lily is treated and acts like a child, and carries a rag
These unmarried women wants to “fulfill their noble tasks of motherhood”(p132). One of the motivation is they feel a sense of loneliness because many of them experience sentiments of insufficiency and uneasiness in a society surrounded by people who are in harmonious conjugal relationships(131). Moreover, even though numbers of “women are unlikely to marry, but “would need a child to take care of them in their old age” (132). A program implemented “encourage women to adopt an intensified focus on their bodies as the locus of their ‘femaleness’”(132).
Jane Eyre: A Quest for True Happiness Charlotte Bronte’s classic heartfelt novel entitled “Jane Eyre” depicts how an unloved orphan constantly wishes for affection and acceptance throughout her life. Even at an early age in life, she never truly understood what it meant to be “loved” and what it means to “love” others. With this, maturing into a young lady definitely opened her eyes to the realities of life. Moreover, the novel also depicts a patriarchal society where women aren’t respected with dignity and equality. In this coming of age novel, discover how a young woman courageously faced her fears and triumphed with love in the end.
In Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening, we are introduced to a woman named Edna Pontellier. She is a wife, a mother, and a homemaker who struggles to fit in the ideal “Victorian woman” mold. The expectations of women during the Victorian era was for women to be devoted to her husband, children and her home and it was frowned if a woman were to devote some time for the benefit of herself. The women were like caged birds; unable to use her wings for flight. Throughout the novel, Edna’s dissatisfaction with her life becomes apparent and we see Edna’s journey to independence and self-discovery.
In “Two Kinds”, Amy Tan uses visual imagery to reveal the true tension in of mother-daughter relationships, when parents push their children to their limits, they truly want the best for them to succeed and have no regrets about what they did or did not do in their childhood years. All relationships have their ups and downs, however parent and child relationships have some of the toughest challenges when it comes to pushing their child to be the best they can. Jing Mei and her mother have a hard altercation with one another when Jing Mei cries in frustration about her future and her mother “shouted. “Only ask you be your best. For you sake.
Summary The opening line introduces a symbol “ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board”. Effectively setting the tone for the rest of the novel, it causes the audience to ponder the question of whether their golden time has already passed, or is their dream still a possibly. The novel does not immediately begin with the protagonist but with women sitting on a porch, gossiping. As soon as Janie enters, the women know her and immediately criticize her clothing as well as her refusal to stop and share her personal story of why she was gone, especially with a much younger man named Tea Cake.
Tan was aware that once these things were said, they could not be taken back, but she was not done yet. Amy Tan wanted her mother to know that she did not want to be the obedient daughter her mother yearned for her to be. She wanted to see her mother’s anger explode, so she resurfaced the incident no one ever spoke of. Tan brought up the babies who had died, and said, “I wish I were dead! Like them” (Tan 141-142).
Some people are never ready to be parents. Even when the baby is about to come out, people aren’t prepared for the life of a parent. It isn’t until you hear your child cry that your instincts flare up and you just take control, and in that moment you are a parent. However not everyone takes control in that moment because even in that moment they just aren’t ready. It’s a tragic topic that ties into two poems: “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke and “The Mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks.
For the event paper, I watched the documentary Trapped, that was playing at the school November 17th. I was very hesitant to watch this film; I was worried there would be an angry undertone but it ended up being the exact opposite it was a sad undertone. The film focused on the southern states and their battle with the laws being passed that restrict women from getting safe abortions. Back in 1973 the court finally made the decision in Roe vs. Wade to make abortion legal to end pregnancy in the first three months stating that decision belongs to the women not the government. States can make restricts against abortion if it doesn’t cause undue burden to the women
The poem “The Vacuum” by Howard Nemerov tells the life of an old man after the horrific loss of his wife. His wife did everything he could ever imagine for him. She was his heart and soul and didn’t know what to do without her. The man saw her as his hero. Throughout the poem the man struggles to keep his emotions in as he thinks his wife soul has traveled to inside the vacuum.