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Essays on mother tongue by amy tan
Essays on mother tongue by amy tan
Essays on mother tongue by amy tan
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The Power of a Mother In their articles, Chang Rae-Lee and Amy Tan establish a profound ethos by utilizing examples of the effects their mother-daughter/mother-son relationships have had on their language and writing. Lee’s "Mute in an English-Only World" illustrates his maturity as a writer due to his mother’s influence on growth in respect. Tan, in "Mother Tongue," explains how her mother changed her writing by first changing her conception of language. In any situation, the ethos a writer brings to an argument is crucial to the success in connecting with the audience; naturally a writer wants to present himself/herself as reliable and credible (Lunsford 308). Lee and Tan, both of stereotypical immigrant background, use their memories of deceased mothers to build credibility in their respective articles. 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? Amy Tan, writer of "Mother Tongue," is f... ... middle of paper ... ...can never reveal: intent, passion, imagery, the rhythms of her speech and the nature of thoughts" (Tan 594). Both Chang Rae-Lee and Amy Tan use their articles to illustrate the impact their mothers had on creating a respectable ethos as a writer. Lee and Tan are authentic and true, which are great values instilled by a mother that shine through in their writing. These articles are great examples of how much a writer’s ethos contributes to his/her overall argument. As said by Lee, "Having been raised in an immigrant family,…[one sees] everyday the exacting price and power of language…" (Lee 584). 736 Words Works Cited Lee, Chang-Rae. "Mute in an English-Only World." Lunsford, et al. 584-588. Lunsford, Andrea A., et al. Everything’s an Argument. 2nd Ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001. Tan, Amy. "Mother Tongue." Lunsford, et al. 589-594.
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 ...
“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan is a story that effectively demonstrates how stereotypes in the world limit people to being able to show their true identity and language. Tan writes specifically about her Chinese mother, who speaks in an accent that frequently causes people to misunderstand or misjudge. Such as Judy in Zootopia, Tan describes how her mother is stereotyped in American as a non-native English speaker. Judy is struggling to fit in with the part of the police officer, while Tan’s mom “Struggles to speak like a true American” (Tan 887). Tan explains how the basic society of America would categorize her mother’s English as “broken” or “fractured” as if it were damaged and needed to be fixed, Thus limiting her mother to truly be herself and speak her
A good mother-daughter relationship is beneficial for both the mother and the daughter. This definitely comes into play in Amy Tan’s novel titled “The Joy Luck Club.” The story is about four sets of Chinese mothers and daughters, and their first experience of growing in America. All of the mothers want to raise their children in the traditional Chinese way and still allow them to be all that they can be in America. This causes many conflicts between them when the daughters act too American and the mothers act too Chinese. There are also problems when some of the daughters grow and get married to American Men. The mothers influence the daughters with stories of ancestors and eventually the daughters learn that their mothers really do know what they are talking about. Each mother shows their love to their daughter in a different way, and the daughters usually respond to it in a negative manner. There is a lack of communication between the mothers and daughters, which leave a lot of open space for assuming. The daughters seem to inherit a lot of their mother’s characteristics as they get older without even meaning to. In some cases they appear to mirror their mothers. It is as if everything that they have fought against for many years has become them.
To begin, Amy Tan was born in California to Chinese immigrant parents (Literature for Life 117). The story focuses on how Amy’s mother was always looked down on because she did not speak proper english. Amy had to grow up using different Englishes: what she learned in school, and the English she had to use at home which was a product of her culture. Amy strives to disprove how society thinks, just because someone has “broken” English means they have low intelligence or understanding. Even though society feels that her mother's language is “broken” her mother understands things Amy and numerous others could never begin to. Amy states how her mother reads Forbes reports, listens to Wall Street Week, and converses with her stockbroker, and yet friends and others can not understand what her mother says. So this proves that language in society is more than just communication, language is a social tool of measuring an individual's worth. Even when Amy’s teachers in school tried to steer her in oth...
Asian American writers have become more influential as education continues to expand and students become introduced to cultures other than their own. According to a book written by Harold Bloom, more journals and magazines "have provided space for South Asian American writers" (Bloom, 14), which brings attention to many major issues. Although issues such as race and language barriers may be at the forefront of discussions, the issue of pride is also among great concern for these authors. Maxine Kingston, Gish Jen, Gail Miyasaki, and Amy Tran highlight numerous instances where pride becomes affected, instilling a variety of emotions; shame or joy become evoked by the speaker or a family member(s) in these instances.
For many of us growing up, our mothers have been a part of who we are. They have been there when our world was falling apart, when we fell ill to the flu, and most importantly, the one to love us when we needed it the most. In “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, it begins with a brief introduction to one mother’s interpretation of the American Dream. Losing her family in China, she now hopes to recapture part of her loss through her daughter. However, the young girl, Ni Kan, mimics her mother’s dreams and ultimately rebels against them.
Prose appeals to ethos by stating her role in life and displaying a large list of texts in her essay. In the first paragraph she makes sure to state that she is a parent in a long sentence that is divided by many commas and includes an
Many renowned writers and other professionals have expressed their personal opinion about the value of words over the last few years. Chinese-American author Amy Tan is one of the many writers who understand the importance of the simplest words in the English language. Tan, author of the Joy Luck Club, was born and raised in San Francisco by her Chinese parents. Tan graduated from high school and pursued her college education at five different universities from 1969 through 1976. Contrary to what her teachers had always tried to push on her, Tan steered away from studies in math and science and earned her B.A. in English and Linguistics. She describes that her educational choices were rebellious in nature. In Tans essay she describes the hardships of growing up with a mother who encountered problems with the English language. When I was growing up, my mothers limited English limited my perception of her, Tan explains. She describes situations where her mother was treated rudely and explains that apologies were always proposed when Tan would interrupt with flawless English. Tan also discusses the educational problems that multicultural students have within the classroom today. She ...
Mother-Daughter Relationships in Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club In the Joy Luck Club, the author Amy Tan, focuses on mother-daughter relationships. She examines the lives of four women who emigrated from China, and the lives of four of their American-born daughters. The mothers: Suyuan Woo, An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-Ying St. Clair had all experienced some life-changing horror before coming to America, and this has forever tainted their perspective on how they want their children raised.
In Maxine Hong Kingston’s autobiographical piece “Silence”, she describes her inability to speak English when she was in grade school. Kindergarten was the birthplace of her silence because she was a Chinese girl attending an American school. She was very embarrassed of her inability, and when moments came up where she had to speak, “self-disgust” filled her day because of that squeaky voice she possessed (422). Kingston notes that she never talked to anyone at school for her first year of silence, except for one or two other Chinese kids in her class. Maxine’s sister, who was even worse than she was, stayed almost completely silent for three years. Both went to the same school and were in the same second grade class because Maxine had flunked kindergarten.
English is an invisible gate. Immigrants are the outsiders. And native speakers are the gatekeepers. Whether the gate is wide open to welcome the broken English speakers depends on their perceptions. Sadly, most of the times, the gate is shut tight, like the case of Tan’s mother as she discusses in her essay, "the mother tongue." People treat her mother with attitudes because of her improper English before they get to know her. Tan sympathizes for her mother as well as other immigrants. Tan, once embarrassed by her mother, now begins her writing journal through a brand-new kaleidoscope. She sees the beauty behind the "broken" English, even though it is different. Tan combines repetition, cause and effect, and exemplification to emphasize her belief that there are more than one proper way (proper English) to communicate with each other. Tan hopes her audience to understand that the power of language- “the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth”- purposes to connect societies, cultures, and individuals, rather than to rank our intelligence.
On further examination, signs of confusion caused by silence and lies in both essays illustrate an identity struggle. Especially, through questioning and presenting their thought process essayists prove their humanity, because they show their desire to understand the core of their writing. For instance, Vivian Gornick explains the vulnerability of essayists in “From The Situation and the Story” and stresses the importance of “a persona” in an essay (168). To achieve this distinct voice essayists are confronted with the challenge to be as honest as they can be. Therefore, the phenomenon of the personal essays is that the process of personal exploration may be heard by the readers. Numerous scholars have debated on the differences between an essay and a memoir. For
To support her thesis she strongly focuses on creating her ethos or her credibility as a writer. Through her impressive use of ethos, she gives the trustwort...
My mother Annie is from Taishan, a city in China and she speaks Cantonese and Mandarin. Annie is currently 49 years old and now living in Manhattan New York, I chose to interview her because we have a strong mother daughter bond so I thought I would take advantage of this paper to get to know her more. Interestingly enough, there were a couple of things I realized about myself and things I did not know about my mother until I interviewed her.
The purpose of Amy Tan’s essay, “Mother Tongue,” is to show how challenging it can be if an individual is raised by a parent who speaks “limited English” (36) as Tan’s mother does, partially because it can result in people being judged poorly by others. As Tan’s primary care giver, her mother was a significant part of her childhood, and she has a strong influence over Tan’s writing style. Being raised by her mother taught her that one’s perception of the world is heavily based upon the language spoken at home. Alternately, people’s perceptions of one another are based largely on the language used.