The American Literature consists of artists from various cultural and social background who devoted their life in literary works. There are number of female authors who are known for their magnificent writings. Sarah Winnemucca, Zora Neale Hurston and Amy Tan are some of the famous female American authors. They belong to different racial and cultural backgrounds but share a common ground when it comes to expressing their life experience and opinions through their literary art works. Moreover, they are thought to be the public figures who have contributed to American literature over the past decades. The authors mentioned above have their own writing
It’s a Wonderful Life is a film set in the World War II era that follows the life of George Bailey. George spends his entire life in a small town named Bedford Falls. His dream was always to leave the town and travel the world, but he never gets the opportunity because he is stuck running his father’s building and loan company. George serves the citizens of the town by providing them with affordable housing. During this time he makes many important relationships with people throughout the town. George does not realize the value of these relationships until the end of the film. George gets so caught up in material wealth that he believes that 8,000$ is the dividing line between his death and a life worth living. After George’s guardian angel, Clarence, shows George what life in Bedford Falls would have been like if George had never been born, George finally realizes the huge treasure that lay in the relationships he cultivated throughout his life. This is when the movie shifts into focusing on what really matters, spiritual wealth. George was willing to throw away all of the amazing relationships he had formed over a pile of cash. Like George, most people in society spend their whole lives chasing material wealth, and never slow down to appreciate the priceless spiritual wealth they have built up through friends and family.
“My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America-America was where all my mother's hopes lay,” (Tan). In this quote from the excerpt we see the views most people have coming to America from another country. “I was just as excited as my mother, I pictured this prodigy part of me as many different images,” (Tan). In this quote we can see how the daughter has the same view as her mother concerning their future. Due to their same cultural views and experiences, such as, coming from a hard life in China they have similar views on the world and
You tell your friend they’re like a giant, and that the clouds need to jump out of his way. You used figurative language to joke with your friend, which is also used by professional writers to develop specific elements in a story. In The “Treasure of Lemon Brown” by Walter Dean Myers, and in “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, the authors use figurative language to help develop scene and character.
Everyday people are judging and being judged by others with unique criteria that we, as inhabitants of Earth deem necessary checkmarks to be met to afford and be afforded tokens of civility. In Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “The Myth of the Latin Woman” the memoir is brimming with personal accounts of fetishiztation and discrimination the author experiences as a Latin woman that have vast influence on her life. Throughout the text Cofer conveys the significance of how deep the status “exotic” to describe Latina women is held inside the minds of people which the author alludes to on page 879, “I thought you Latin girls were supposed to mature early,” [1] after being given a sudden, non-consensual kiss at a dance by her date. The author expresses the cultural dissonance between
What is a Puritan? A Puritan is a member of the English Protestant in the late sixteenth and seventeenth century who believes they must live by the Scriptures to abide by God. Anne Bradstreet a Puritan writer of To My Dear and Loving Husband and Upon the Burning of Our House addresses her thoughts and feelings in her writings about God and his actions. Another author Jonathan Edwards who wrote the sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God justifies God’s punishment on those who sin. Bradstreet and Edwards view on God and his actions contradict each other however they express their beliefs in related forms.
What is your American Dream? “The Joy Luck Club”, a novel by Amy Tan, talks about how four mother-daughter pairs have fulfilled their American Dreams. Suyuan and Jing-mei was one of the mother-daughter pair who wants to fulfill their dreams in America. Suyuan’s American Dream starts in her heart when she decides to escape from the chaotic China and find a better life by immigrating to America. However, she loses her two babies on the way to Chungking. American Dream means different things for different people. Suyuan has fulfilled her American Dream in a certain degree by trying to provide her daughters with successful, blissful and better lives.
Two kinds, a short story by Amy Tan, explores the relationship between an immigrant mother and her first generation daughter. The mother, who has faith in the American dream, values the belief that to be happy, you have to be famous and change yourself; Ni Kan, the daughter, yearns for a personality of her own. Tan characterize these women as foils to each other. As a result of them being foils, they’re relationship is strained and they never have a close bond until Ni Kan grows older. Tan uses these characters to show that with each generation the American dream is changed. Amy Tan demonstrates that different generations of people have different views on the American dream through Ni Kan ‘s mother dream of fame and fortune for her child, and Ni Kan’s dream of finding an identity. Tan believes the cause of the barrier between mother and daughter is due to their foiled dreams.
Mother knows best. And yet so many daughters in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club feel slighted by what the matriarchal figures in their lives have in mind for them, or rather, what they believe their mothers have in mind for them. A perfect storm of expectation, true and false, about love, about success, about being Chinese. The souring of mother-daughter relationships in The Joy Luck Club stem from unrealistic or ill conceived expectations that both parties hold for the other.
“A mother 's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.” The wise words of Agatha Christie ring true for many across the world; the unconditional love a mother holds for her child. An instinct so powerful and caring, it does not allow for any interference or hindrance. The universal knowledge and strength of a mother can become, ironically, an element that provides difficulties in many relationships. The love between a mother and daughter is eternally enchanting and frustrating, invigorating and challenging. Mothers serve as a role model and example to their daughters, providing insight and guidance in every walk of life. Despite the stress many mother-daughter relationships endure, a mother’s advice is imperative. Through examining Amy Tan’s book The Joy Luck Club, Sandhya Shetty’s painting Mother and Daughter, and “Sonnets are full of love, and this is my tome” by Christina Rossetti, the power of a mother’s influence is evident. As the prominence of a mother’s wisdom grows, a daughter’s perspective will transform by understanding her relationships and situations.
Research shows that up to 70% of people who have gone through something traumatic, have shown positive psychological growth in their lives (Gregoire). Life after trauma can be hard to regain due to the instability we experience throughout that hard time in our lives. But having a strong, and satisfying relationship or relationships can help to bring people to peace in a slightly more uncomplicated way. This example of dealing with grief is brought to attention in Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club. Due to the turbulent times in Shanghai, China, and then coming together in San Francisco, California, these four women and their daughters rely on each other to get through it all. Each conflict the characters go through, relates back to how they
“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
Relationships between a daughter and her mother can often be strained because the two sides often want different things from each other. In the two novels, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom and The Joy Luck Club, the authors use different tones to express the contrasting relationships they have with their daughter and mother. In Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom, Amy Chua uses diction to create a frustrated and annoyed, yet conversational tone between her and her daughter that shows their loving relationship, whereas Amy Tan uses her word choices to create an intense, resentful tone in the novel, The Joy Luck Club, that shows her and her mother's toxic relationship.
In her novel, The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan focuses on the fact that the bond between a mother and daughter can overcome any ethnic barrier. Despite there being many disagreements and arguments about the ways to live their lives, Tan defies this issue by creating a bond that is unbreakable even though the experienced different upbringings. Certain disagreements keep the novel interesting and create a conflict depicting the problems stemming from this barrier. Through her use of similes, metaphors, and flashbacks, Tan shows how the bond between a mother and daughter can withstand even the strongest cultural differences.
Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds,” written in 1989, captures the relationship of a mother and daughter from China that has just relocated to America. So, in the beginning of the short story Tan expresses the mother’s beliefs of America by saying “my mother believed you could be anything you wanted in America” (Tan, Two Kinds, www.rtsd.org). then going into examples such as “You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get good retirement and of course, you can be a prodigy, too” (Tan, Two Kinds, www.rtsd.org). Nevertheless, as the story unfolds, Tan explains in more detail of the relationship of the mother and her daughter. In which the mother fully believed her daughter would become this great prodigy. Therefore, pressuring her daughter