Brave Orchid: The Thematic Power Of Silence

The mother wants to explain the importance of the feather to her daughter but she is unable to speak grammatically correct English and her daughter only speaks English. The woman’s daughter grows up speaking only English and “swallowing more Coca-Cola than sorrow” and “for a long time now the woman had wanted to give her daughter the single swan feather and tell her, “This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions.” And she waited, year after year, for the day she could tell her daughter this in perfect American English” (17). The mother is unable to communicate important messages to her daughter which then creates a language barrier. Jing-mei Woo is given a jade pendant from her mother and ponders what it means after but she is unable to find the answer since her mother has died. Jing-mei thinks about when her “mother gave [her, her] “life’s importance”, a jade pendant on a gold chain...But these days, [she] think about [her] life’s importance.

She says: “Maybe she had listened through the walls and heard nothing, the stagnant silence of our unhappy house” (114). Lena is associating the loudness of her neighbor’s home with the love she expects from her own mother, and the silence of her house so strongly opposes that which she expects. This stark contrast of home lives showcases how different cultures approach motherhood, which really reinforces the idea of being American versus being Chinese that is explored so much in this novel. Lena desperately wants her mother to understand the expectations associated with motherhood in America, and doesn’t understand why her relationship with her mother is so much more broken than her peers’ relationships. Without these expectations from both Lena and Ying-Ying about how it is acceptable to mother, their relationship would have endured significantly less

Pierce. The story showed that the relationship between them two wasn’t the greatest, it wasn’t the best relationship but it wasn’t the worst. In the story, Rachel and her teacher Mrs. Pierce do have a conflict with each other. The conflict is that Mrs. Pierce made Rachel wear a sweater without asking Rachel if it was hers or not, therefore causing Rachel to feel bad and cry. Their relationship does not change throughout the story, it stays the same.

After exactly two months, Lydia makes a promise she swears she will never break: “If her mother ever came home...She would do everything her mother told her. Everything her mother wanted. (137)” Eventually, Marilyn returns, and her arrival is “nothing short of a miracle. (Ng 146).” Life goes on in the Lee household, and eventually Lydia finds herself a sophomore in high school. Her parents push her to take advanced, rigorous courses, and although her parents are under the impression that Lydia is a happy girl at school with lots of friends and adequate grades, they are wrong.

Her father told her it meant the youngest sister. She had never questioned what her name meant and now it has come together that her mother 's dreams were for all three of her daughters to be together. Jing now realizes that she has upset her mother by not accepting herself as being Chinese in the beginning. Now Jing realizes her Chinese roots. At the end, the three sisters take a picture together and Jing says, Together we look like our mother.

Twyla refers to herself and Roberta as ‘salt and pepper’, telling the reader that they are both different races. At first, Twyla is not too keen on being roommates with Roberta, but as Twyla 's memory went on it showed the girls had more in common that she thought. Both girls were eight years old, they were not very good in school, and their mothers were still alive. This is what separated them from all the other girls

Deenie The first main characters name is Deenie and her three traits are stubborn, independent, and kind. she is an average girls as she would say but her mother would say she was born with a beautiful face that she needs to put to good use Deenie's mother often says god gave you a pretty face for a reason. Deenie goes to school the same as any other kid but she often gets to skip school for auditions. These auditions are for modeling jobs Deenies mother is always setting up interviews for deenie but deenie does not want to model but she wiud never tell her mother that. Deenie has been getting told by all the modeling agencies that her posture is not very good and one hip is higher than the other deenies mother is blaming her but Deenie can't help It because she has a condition called scoliosis Deenie has to go to multiple doctors to figure that out and get the proper treatments Deenies mother is devastated because with this condition she has to wear a brace that she has to wear for four year she absolutely hates this brace and will not wear it eventually she learns to deal with it but it is a struggle.

In the The Bean Trees, Barbra Kingsolver challenges the idea that people in poverty are lazy and never work. Poverty is a fight that some have to fight every day, it is not by choice that some people struggle. One way that The bean trees challenges the idea that the poor are lazy is how determined Taylor was. Taylor was determined to escape poverty and make something out of her life, “But I stayed in school, I was not the smartest or even particularly outstanding but I was there and staying out of trouble and intended to finish,” (Kingsolver 3). Many girls in high school were dropping out of school and falling into poverty stricken families, but Taylor knowing what

She wears bangs and overalls, which is unusual. The conventional way to dress for a girl was very different from the way Scout dresses, which is why her choice of attire is often frowned upon, but she insists that she “could do nothing in a dress”(p.90) When she mentions that, she gets the response that she “wasn’t supposed to be doing things that required pants.” One of the reasons why Scout is different from the other girls is because of the way she was raised. Her mother died when she was only two years old, so she didn’t have a big influence in Scout’s life. The remaining female influences Scout had in her life were their cook Calpurnia and her neighbours. Her father Atticus didn’t raise her with the goal to make her the perfect lady, but tried to teach her to use her mind and have empathy with others.

ry: Akeelah is an 11-year-old girl who lost her father, who she has inherited her love of words from. Akeelah doesn’t really come from a good neighborhood or a two-parent household. But she soon is thrown into a setting where her love for words will benefit her and give hope for her school and her neighborhood. Akeelah’s school and neighborhood is kind of on the poor, rough, urban side of town. In the movie, Akeelah wonders why she would want to represent a school that can 't even put doors on the toilet stalls.