Girl In Translation Jean Kwok Analysis

People may think that movies aren't as different as their book counterpart. While that may be true, there are many aspects between the book and the movie that aren't as similar. The book The Joy Luck Club written by Amy Tan share many similarities and differences with the movie by the same name. The book and the movie possess similar qualities; nevertheless there are many parts where the movie diverged from the book. However, although there are many differences, both movie and book place an emphasis on the same themes.

“Her actions remind me that, even under unbearable circumstances, one can still believe in justice,” in David Henry Hwang’s foreword, in Ji-Li Jiang’s memoir Red Scarf Girl, commemorated even during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution anyone can overcome adversity (9). Ji-Li Jiang was a young teenager at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, and living through a very political time in China’s history made Ji-Li into the person she is today. Ji-Li’s intelligence, her choices, and family devotion made her into the headstrong and successful person she is today.

When becoming a mother, the first instinct is to protect and raise a healthy child at whatever cost. Habits are drop as well as large life changes. The last bite is given as well as altering one’s life style to insure the child has no needs. This could mean getting rid of negative, toxic people who could pose as a threat or even a sleeping pattern may need to be altered. However, the child comes first and the mothers wants are secondary.

Teenagers experience many trials and tribulations throughout adolescence. The Secret Life of Maeve Lee Kwong (Secret Life) powerfully appeals to teenagers in an in depth manner: the challenges of teenage life, being religion, friendship, grief, puberty, the opposite gender, parties and freedom/independence have convincingly been conveyed in the novel through a range of language techniques.

Throughout generations cultural traditions have been passed down, alongside these traditions came language. The language of ancestors, which soon began to be molded by the tongue of newer generations, was inherited. Though language is an everlasting changing part of the world, it is a representation of one’s identity, not only in a cultural way but from an environmental standpoint as well. One’s identity is revealed through language from an environmental point of view because the world that one is surrounded with can cause them to have their own definitions of words, an accent, etc. With newer generations, comes newer forms of languages. Although these new generation 's’ way of speaking has come from elsewhere, there is a kind of shame that comes from this. Shame, because their ancestors spoke

In the novel “American Born Chinese” by Gene Luen Yang (2006), it talks about three different people’s stories. The author starts off with telling a story about a monkey called the Monkey King, who lives in the jungle, seeking for higher power to become considered a god in the book. The author also tells a story about an American born Chinese boy named Jin Wang, who moves from San Francisco and struggles with fitting in at a new school. The last story the author tells is about a boy named Danny who has his cousin Chin-Kee from China visit every year. Danny ends up struggling to keep his reputation in adequate shape at school after his cousin visits causing him to switch schools often. When the author talks about Jin Wang and Danny, they both seek to earn their crush, Jin Wang wants to call Amelia Harris his girlfriend and Danny wants to call Melanie his girlfriend. The author tells all these stories in the book, but connects them together, in the end, making the puzzle come together, demonstrating how intersectionality and oppressions are shown in society today.

Assimilation is usually meant to indicate what happens to immigrants in a new land. However, “rejection, loneliness, discrimination—these were the byproducts of living in the United States” (Ghymn 37). In Marilyn Chin’s essay on assimilation “How I Got That Name,” the speaker acquaints the readers how she got the American name “Marilyn.” The tension between the two cultures is evident, for the speaker is treated as “Model Minority.” Her race and ethnicity define her; in fact, the stereotypes inscribed with her race restricted and cage her significance in the society. Similarly, David Hwang’s 10-minute play “Trying to Find Chinatown” centers on an encounter between Ronnie, a Chinese-American street musician, and Benjamin, a Caucasian tourist from Wisconsin who identifies himself as Asian-American, in the busy street of New York. In the play, “each character defines who he believes he is: Benjamin is convinced he is a Chinese American, and Ronnie sees

In Duong Thu Huong’s Paradise of the Blind, Hang has been placed on a path of self-sacrifice and duty by her family. Her life unfolds in stages- childhood, young adulthood, and her eventual role as an exported worker in Russia. With each of these shifts in her life comes a shift in setting and a shift in her emotional state. Hang’s changing emotional state depicts her “coming of age” and her growth as a character. Setting is important to creation of shift in the novel, and is often described in detail. Color imagery is often prominent in Hang’s description. Between settings, there are significant shifts in color imagery. In Paradise of the Blind, setting and the colors with which it is associated reflect Hang’s emotional state and create shift

Girl, Interrupted, written by Susanna Kaysen in 1967, is a thought provoking memoir following her and fellow parents’ tragic and twisted experiences in McLean Mental Hospital. As a young adult Susanna Kaysen tried to commit suicide by swallowing a bottle of pills and following it with a bottle of alcohol. Her parents were very worried about her and suggested her to go to a doctor that her dad once knew. Kaysen visited the doctor who, after talking to her for a while, requested that she be sent to one of the best mental hospitals in her area. She had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. She voluntarily left her parents, her boyfriend, her job; Susanna had to completely leave behind her life as she knew it. Once arriving at McLean the reader is quickly introduced to the patients that live there with her. Susanna introduces the patients that she became close with during her stay. For example, Polly, a young girl who was described as courageous and having a fiery personality. Another girl, Lisa, she was never predictable and always entertained the other residence with her imagination and her want to escape the ward. Susanna also introduces Georgia, her roommate, Daisy, a seasonal patient, and Cynthia, a patient with serious depression. Lisa Cody shows that even in a hospital girls can still be very cruel. Lisa Cody quickly became friends

The Woman Warrior is a “memoir of a girlhood among ghosts” in which Maxine Hong Kingston recounts her experiences as a second generation immigrant. She tells the story of her childhood by intertwining Chinese talk-story and personal experience, filling in the gaps in her memory with assumptions. The Woman Warrior dismantles the archetype of the typical mother-daughter relationship by suggesting that diaspora redefines archetypes by combining conflicting societal norms.

A seeking for identity shown through evolution takes place in both “The Chinese Seamstress” and “The Handsomest Drowned man”, seen through the development of characters from narrative stories that help them grow as individuals who live in societies that are isolated and unknown from the rest of the world. The way the narratives impact the characters and society in the two stories help them seek a new identity that could not be discovered without them. The novel “The Chinese Seamstress” is a great way to exemplify development of knowledge and character seen through two major characters, the narrator and the seamstress. The short story “The Handsomest Drowned man” shows a broader development of identity through a society.

As an American basically we are entitled to an academic education. This aspect of being an American is frequently taken for granted. There are some countries where an education is viewed as a luxury. Growing up in this world one needs more than an academic education. One also needs the opportunity to be taught how to deal with life as a whole. In the novel Girl In Translation, the main character Kimberly’s knowledge is tested.

Often times in literature, character relationships change and evolve. “Two Kinds” written by Amy Tan, is a story about a daughter’s uncertain feelings toward her mother. Overtime, the mother-daughter relationship gets ruined when the daughter does not believe in her potential to be a child prodigy as strongly as her mother does. After an attentive analysis of the story, the reader is aware of how Jing-mei’s feelings toward her mother changes, why they did so, and how those changes affected the entire story.

“Communication is the key to a successful relationship, attentiveness, and consistency. Without it, there is no relationship,” (Bleau). The Joy Luck Club is a novel written by Amy Tan. Set in the twentieth century, this novel depicts the life of four Chinese immigrant women escaping their past and their American-grown daughters. The novel reveals the mothers’ hardship-filled past and motivations alongside with the daughters’ inner conflicts and struggles. Throughout the entire novel, the mothers and daughters face inner struggles, family conflict, and societal collision. The divergence of cultures produces tension and miscommunication, which effectively causes the collision of American morals, beliefs, and priorities with Chinese culture which

Some people come into our life as blessings. Some come in your life as lessons. These words from Mother Theresa describe Weldon Kees poem For My Daughter written in the 1940’s which is the time of World War II. Throughout this war people have lived in a time when medicine was not very developed, and frequently children fell upon bad circumstances because of their situation. You can obviously tell from the opening of this poem that the speaker is talking about his daughter and certain that his daughter is basically destined to have a forbidding life with no future. However, in the very last line of the poem he acknowledges that he has no daughter and his desire none and that puts a whole new twist on the poem.