Analysis Of Persimmons By Li-Young Lee

662 Words2 Pages

Persimmons poem explores the ways of understanding and expressing one’s intuition and knowledge. The poet, Li-Young Lee obviously uses expression of words to present his themes. Judging from his own presupposition, words can be used to mean different things under different context. He is of the view that love embodies words. For this reason, words may bring more confusion and misunderstanding. As an immigrant, the poet presents a novel perception regarding this familiar theme. Because English was his second language, he could readily confuse words in a way native fluent speaker could find weird. His teacher regarded him as stupid, creepy boy and she was constantly punishing him. Therefore, misunderstanding and hatred ensued between the two for lack of love (Xiaojing, 2006). When the teacher, later in the poem, brings a persimmon to be shared in the class, the poet just stare at the classmates as they eat inedible fruit – neither the teacher nor the student was ready to learn or to teach from the other. Contrary, when later in his life, Lee decide to share his childhood language with his Native American wife, he realizes that they understand each other very well. However, he finds it difficult remembering a Chinese word since they share a complex and intricate set of emotional …show more content…

I gave him the persimmons, swelled, heavy as sadness, and sweet as love”. In its interpretative view, the poet says that, even if his father was such old and blind, he could still feel the persimmons. He could feel its sweetness and heaviness. Although, he couldn’t see its color or share, he knew what is was by touch for it is heavy in your palm. The poet’s father was finding joy in painting these persimmons for he had that sentimental attachment. Even if he (his father) was blind, he kept painting them for he loved their fruitful taste for to him, it was a scent of a love’s hair (Engles,

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Judy Fong-Bates 'The Gold Mountain Coat'

    279 Words  | 1 Pages

    Even with the familiarity of the two Chinese families with each other, the narrator is always “struck speechless” and feels “diminished and insignificant” in the presence of Sam Sing. When the brothers came

    Read More

  • Notes For A Poem On Being Asian American Summary

    446 Words  | 1 Pages

    Her principal was described as "maniacal" (Wong 1). Wong identified speaking Chinese as an "embarrassment" (Wong 2). The words she chose

    Read More

  • Thick Grow The Rush Leaves Analysis

    340 Words  | 1 Pages

    Have you ever marveled at the powerful stories a poem can tell with just words? I will be analyzing the similarities and differences in figurative language and the elements of Chinese poetry in the Chinese poems “I Beg of You, Chung Tzu” and “Thick Grow the Rush Leaves.”

    Read More

  • Mother Daughter Relationships in works by Chang Rae-Lee and Amy Tan

    778 Words  | 2 Pages

    Chang Rae-Lee, author of "Mute in an English-Only World," moved to America from Korea when he was only six or seven years old. He adopted the English language quickly, as most children do, but his mother continued to struggle. "For her, the English language…usually meant trouble and a good dose of shame and sometimes real hurt" (Lee 586). It is obvious, though, that his mother was persistent in her attempt to learn English and deal with her limited culture experience, as Lee accounts of her using English flash cards, phrase books and a pocket workbook illustrated with stick-people figures. Lee sympathetically connects with the audience through his mother, and forces them to make a personal conclusion when he ends the article with a lingering question in the reader’s mind; what if they had seen her struggling? Would they have sat back and watched or stepped up to help?

    Read More

  • Literary Techniques In Li-Young Lee

    1207 Words  | 3 Pages

    The poem, A Story, is written in the third person point of view. Thereby, allowing the audience to grasp onto the sentimental emotions of the father. The story begins with the depiction of the father as a “sad...man who is asked

    Read More

  • Characterism In A Pair Of Tickets By Amy Tan

    2060 Words  | 5 Pages

    “The minute our train leaves the Hong Kong border and enters Shenzhen, China, I feel different. I can feel the skin on my forehead tingling, my blood rushing through a new course, my bones aching with a familiar old pain. And I think, my mother was right. I am becoming Chinese. (179). In the story A Pair of Tickets by Amy Tan, the protagonist character, Jing-mei, finds herself in several difficult situations due to how her social and cultural upbringing has shaped her. She finds herself pulled between her Chinese DNA and her American background. While she was raised being told that she was Chinese and “it’s in her blood”, she does not identify as such, because she grew up in America and only sees herself as an American. After her mother’s passing,

    Read More

  • Amy Tan's View Of Language By Amy Tan

    1017 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tan makes an appeal to emotion with the connections she describes. A connection between a mother and daughter that is wrought with emotion is as relatable as humaneness is to a human. There is a soft declaration to be found in Tan’s statement, “I knew I had succeeded where it counted when my mother finished reading my book and gave me her verdict: “So easy to read.” Tan gains trust by appealing to emotion with something as understandable as the loving and more often than not tension riddled connection between a mother and her daughter. Tan incorporates the intimacy of the “broken” language in correlation to her husband with these words, “It has become our language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk, the language I grew up with” (Tan 1). Under the assumption that Louis DeMattei (Tan’s husband) has no prior history with the Chinese Language Tan makes an important point of the use of the “broken” language she learned from her mother. Demattei doesn’t inquire or correct Tan when she switches between the English she acquired from the vast expanses of English literature and the English she acquired from her mother. Tan says, “he even uses it with me,” there is an implied level of comfort within the relationship she has with her husband. Tan shares what is viewed as “broken” and in need of fixing with Demattei and he reciprocates, leaving them

    Read More

  • Themes of Language and Racial Identity in Native Speaker, By Chang-Rae Lee

    2640 Words  | 6 Pages

    Chang-Rae Lee’s Native Speaker expresses prominent themes of language and racial identity. Chang-Rae Lee focuses on the struggles that Asian Americans have to face and endure in American society. He illustrates and shows readers throughout the novel of what it really means to be native of America; that true nativity of a person does not simply entail the fact that they are from a certain place, but rather, the fluency of a language verifies one’s defense of where they are native. What is meant by possessing nativity of America would be one’s citizenship and legality of the country. Native Speaker suggests that if one looks different or has the slightest indication that one should have an accent, they will be viewed not as a native of America, but instead as an alien, outsider, and the like. Therefore, Asian Americans and other immigrants feel the need to mask their true identity and imitate the native language as an attempt to fit into the mold that makes up what people would define how a native of America is like. Throughout the novel, Henry Park attempts to mask his Korean accent in hopes to blend in as an American native. Chang-Rae Lee suggests that a person who appears to have an accent is automatically marked as someone who is not native to America. Language directly reveals where a person is native of and people can immediately identify one as an alien, immigrant, or simply, one who is not American. Asian Americans as well as other immigrants feel the need to try and hide their cultural identity in order to be deemed as a native of America in the eyes of others. Since one’s language gives away the place where one is native to, immigrants feel the need to attempt to mask their accents in hopes that they sound fluent ...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Persimmons By Li-Young Lee

    1003 Words  | 3 Pages

    foreign boy, and his difficulty integrating into a distant society. The persimmon is a very prominent symbol in the poem; it is a very treasured fruit in China and in this piece it is used to represent the ethnic divide between Americans and Chinese people. The young boy shows signs of frustration in regards to the teacher’s ignorance about the persimmon and how the teacher does not appreciate it the same way he does. The boy is very experienced with the fruit, from determining the ripeness, how to prepare it, and how to handle it specifically. Dissimilar from those in the new society, the boy has established a connection with the persimmon from his cultural heritage

    Read More

  • A Literary Analysis Of 'A Story' By Li-Young Lee

    1200 Words  | 3 Pages

    The poem is written in the father’s point of view; this gives insight of the father’s character and

    Read More

  • The Imporance of the Setting in A Pair of Tickets by Amy Tan

    669 Words  | 2 Pages

    The setting of the story creates a better grasp on the intelligence of each character. The narrator of the story goes from her belief that there is no way she is Chinese to understanding her heritage and that she is really Chinese. The narrator states that she doesn’t really know what it means to be Chinese (Tan 133). She progressively learns throughout the story what it means to be Chinese. She mentions of Aiyi and her father knowing Mandarin only while the rest of Aiyi’s family only knows Cantonese (Tan 137). This relates to setting due to the time and areas that Mandarin was spoken compared to where Cantonese is spoken now. The narrator was shocked to see the elegance of the hotel they were scheduled to stay in and the pricing (Tan 138). This can be interpreted as her being inexperienced while the rest of her family were either used to this kind of service or had no outstanding opinions upon it. The narrator starts to see her father in a different manner once he and Aiyi start conversing and onc...

    Read More

  • The First-generation Immigrant in America

    2126 Words  | 5 Pages

    The scene is always the same: the three of us sitting in a room together, talking. I see her from the corner of my eye, glancing for only a second or two, but always long enough to notice the look on her face, the expression I’ve become so painfully familiar with over the years. I am forced to turn away; the conversation resumes. She is a few feet from us. She hears everything, and understands nothing except what she can gather from the expressions on our faces, the tone of our voices. She pretends not to be bothered, smiling at us and interjecting random questions or comments in Chinese—a language I was raised to speak, a language I’ve slowly forgotten over the years, a language that is now mine only by blood. It is an earnest but usually futile attempt to break through the invisible barrier that separates her from us, and in spite of all her efforts to hide it, that sad, contem...

    Read More

  • Amy Tan's Mother Tongue

    1115 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Essay written by Amy Tan titled 'Mother Tongue' concludes with her saying, 'I knew I had succeeded where I counted when my mother finished my book and gave her understandable verdict' (39). The essay focuses on the prejudices of Amy and her mother. All her life, Amy's mother has been looked down upon due to the fact that she did not speak proper English. Amy defends her mother's 'Broken' English by the fact that she is Chinese and that the 'Simple' English spoken in her family 'Has become a language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk' (36). Little did she know that she was actually speaking more than one type of English. Amy Tan was successful in providing resourceful information in every aspect. This gave the reader a full understanding of the disadvantages Amy and her mother had with reading and writing. The Essay 'Mother Tongue' truly represents Amy Tan's love and passion for her mother as well as her writing. Finally getting the respect of her critics and lucratively connecting with the reaction her mother had to her book, 'So easy to read' (39). Was writing a book the best way to bond with your own mother? Is it a struggle to always have the urge to fit in? Was it healthy for her to take care of family situations all her life because her mother is unable to speak clear English?

    Read More

  • Amy Tan’s A Mother’s Tongue

    979 Words  | 2 Pages

    Tan was born to a pair of Chinese immigrants. Her mother understood English extremely well, but the English she spoke was “broken.”(36) Many people not familiar with her way of speaking found it very difficult to understand her. As a result of this, Tan would have to pretend to be her mother, and she called people up to yell at them while her mother stood behind her and prompted her. This caused Tan to be ashamed of her mother throughout her youth, but as she grew, she realized that the language she shares with her mother is a “language of intimacy” (36) that she even uses when speaking with her husband.

    Read More

  • Under The Persimmon Tree Analysis

    503 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Taliban is a major conflict in Afghanistan. In Under the Persimmon Tree by Suzanne Fisher Staples, the Taliban causes conflict for the main characters, Najmah and Nusrat. Najmah struggles with losing her family to the Taliban and seeks to find her father and brother.

    Read More

More about Analysis Of Persimmons By Li-Young Lee

Open Document