Amy Tans - Essay Example

Cultural struggle Amy Tan’s essays contain informative and captivating messages. She delivers powerful information to the audience by use of well structured essays from the introductory paragraphs to the concluding. Just like a filmmaker, Amy Tan demonstrates the ability to systematically construct her work from scratch, while enriching various characters with both educative and mind entertaining themes. Reading through any of her essays, one is able to discern that the work is understandable and informative too. Selection of titles and introductory paragraphs portrays Amy Tan as an essayist with real mastery of literary work. She designs her essays in such a way that readers are able to get a glimpse of the story being told in an entertaining way. Also, she uses suspense to command readers’ attention forcing them to look closely at the text until uncovering the truth to achieve a desired understanding. In her series of essays, Amy Tan juxtaposes various topics arising from the use of English, during one’s communication. Taking a look at the piece Mother Tongue, Amy Tan brings out clear information on the experience resulting from a person speaking broken English compared to another speaking Standard English (Tan). She goes ahead to quote from her mom’s English to convince her audience about her background. She says that “to me, my mother's English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. It's my mother tongue.” (Tan). As the essay progresses, she goes on to reveal that her mother’s English was not better. Her mother’s English was full of grammatical mistakes, as the audience could barely understand (Tan). She says that “I have described it to people as 'broken" or ‘fractured’ English… I can think of no way to describe it other than ‘broken,’… other terms used, ‘limited English,’” (Tan). Buy writing Mother Tongue, Amy Tan draws the readers’ attention by giving a reflection of people’s perception that the type and quality of English spoken by an individual represents one’s state of mind. She “…believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say. That is, because she expressed them imperfectly her thoughts were imperfect” (Tan). Through her statements, readers get to understand that Tan used to look down on her mother due to the quality of English she was using. Farther reading Mother Tongue reveals that Amy’s mom is an uneducated woman from China and does not comprehend Standard English. She used to request Amy to make phone calls on her behalf. Amy says that “she used to have me call people on the phone to pretend I was she … a call to her brokers in New York. I had to get on the phone and say in an adolescent voice that was not very convincing, ‘This is Mrs. Tan.’” (Tan). The mother asked Amy to contact the stockbroker and pretend to be her. She, therefore, went ahead to talk to the stockbrokers by paraphrasing her mother’s jumbled sentences into understandable and meaningful statements, to the stockbrokers. Similar captivating information can be derived from the essay Two Kinds, by Amy Tan. In Two Kinds Amy Tan demonstrates that humans carry traumas of their past into their future by dredging them up either intentionally or unconsciously. She uses a Chinese narrator to bring out constant struggles that people go through while trying to find out better understanding and way of existence. She employs juxtaposition of history, art and biography to bring out new understanding. The narrator, with her mother, travelled to San Francisco “after losing everything in China… But she never looked back with regret. Things could get better in so many ways.” (Tan). Readers witness struggle between the Chinese girl and her mother. Things get more complicated when the two lose all their belongings in China and move to America. She demonstrates to the readers that the Chinese mother is more interested in stories about remarkable children (Tan). The interest makes her read stories and “watch Shirley's old movies on TV as though they were training films.” in a bid to try and imagine her own child as a “kind of prodigy” (Tan). By describing the struggle that the Chinese family is experiencing, Tan brings out hope and determination that should be emulated by the readers. She designs the story to serve as an inspiration to all mothers. Tan demonstrates to the readers that mother’s ambition for their daughter continues while watching various shows about remarkable children. She uses a Chinese girl, nine years old, “…Shirley tapping her feet, or singing a sailor song,” (Tan). The show marks another struggle between mother and a daughter. Although the Chinese mother arranges piano lessons for her daughter, the girl provides false information concerning the time as well as participation. Just like in the “Mother Tongue”, the girl is confident during her turn to play the piano. However, the awful playing leaves the girl embarrassed as well as her family. She says that “I hit the first wrong note. And then I hit another and another … I played this strange jumble through to the end…”(Tan).The girl is just like the narrator’s mother in the Mother Tongue, whose sentences were full of grammatical errors and audiences could hardly understand. Cultural struggles do not leave anyone untouched; it affects even those that come in the future. While writing the essay Two Kinds, Amy Tan must have been informed by the struggles that her family went through while running away from china’s Cultural Revolution. The statements and quotations contained in the essay Mother Tongue, directly, captures authentic experiences that immigrants go through while in a foreign country. However, the message conveyed by Amy Tan’s work portrays her as an intelligent author capable of capturing a glimpse of daily activities taking place in the society. As one of great writers, Amy is shows the capability to juxtapose new narratives focusing not only on our sense of being mired in the past tragedies but also on how the tragedies are complex elements, often untold. Amy Tan has continually demonstrated the ability to retell past events in a way that seems fresh, entertaining and educative to the audience. Looking at the The Joy Luck Club (Tan), Tan is able to dedicate the story to her mother while effectively targeting readers by uncovering some truths to achieve a given level of understanding. Being divided into four sections, each with four intertwined chapters, the book revolves around intercultural and intergenerational struggles. Readers are able to discern the common attribute of Tan’s work, the values of women in one’s development. Much is revealed about mother’s life in China. The relationship between mothers and their daughters is shown during their interactions while playing Mah Jong. Playing Mah Jong involves players making secret moves whose revelations are become evident during the last minute. In contrast to the essays Mother Tongue and Two Kinds by Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club involves making personal struggles secretly with the results being evident at the last minute (Tan). Despite the difference in the approach of conflict witnessed by most characters in the works of Amy Tan, the message of cultural struggle is evident in all the three analyzed. Mothers are mostly interested in molding their daughters into remarkable children. For instance in The Joy Luck Club mothers are keen to impart wisdom to their daughters. Children are aware of their mothers’ desire to mold them into remarkable children. However, the children display mixed response to their mothers’ interest. Readers can observe signs of love, fear, resentment as well as imitation among the daughters. By using different response to the characters, Amy Tan is able to demonstrate to the readers the real setting and struggle of life, which children display while growing up. Being a talented author deeply rooted in her background, Amy Tan’s writings are full of cultural conflict contents. Amy has always appeared sensitive regarding her background. She always finds a way to talk about perception of Chinese culture in a foreign land. She wondered “What would Robert think of our shabby Chinese Christmas? What would he think of our noisy Chinese relatives who lacked proper American manners?” [Amy14]. Although she was in love with the minister’s son, she was not comfortable with her parents’ decision to invite the minister’s family over for Christmas dinner. The main point of concern here is the fact that the minister is not Chinese while her mother would probably prepare and serve Chinese food. Also, she considers her relatives to be noisy as well as lacking American manners. Amy goes on to reveal the resentment towards her mother. The mother wants her to stick to her Chinese culture, despite being in America. The mother tells Amy that "You want to be the same as American girls on the outside … But inside you must always be Chinese” (Tan). The differences between parents and children are as a result of parents trying to nurture their children with respect to their culture. Being Chinese descendants, Amy is torn between upholding her Chinese values and coping with new American culture. Similar scenario is witnessed in Kingston's essay No Name Woman. She is also torn between her Chinese culture and the American culture. Through most of Amy’s writings, she displays discomfort with regard to her speech and culture. She desires to show American culture in whole of her life activities. The essays portray real situations that foreigners go through while trying to cope with foreign cultures. They have to align their behavior with those of the host citizens. The foods should also be prepared in a manner that conforms to cooking style of the host. Looking at the cultural struggle witnessed in most of the Amy Tan’s work, there is an aspect of a stereotype. Amy writes her essays with the concept of stereotype (Anne 278). The feeling and perception are informed by the fact that she is living in a foreign land. Despite being in America, she continually captures the clash between Chinese culture and American culture. She wondered her boyfriend’s “terrible disappointment would he feel upon seeing not a roasted turkey and sweet potatoes but Chinese food?” (Tan). She had to struggle and improve her English from broken to Standard English (Tan 315), just like in Saying Thanks to my Ghosts. Although she did not believe in ghosts, she had to struggle and come to terms with the spiritual connection to her loved ones, who passed on sometimes back (Tan). Amy brings out the reality of the feeling of staying connected with those we love as common among people from different cultures. One always wishes to remain connected to his or her loved ones, even if they have departed. Being in a state of cultural struggle takes away one’s happiness. Amy “…cried…” because the minister’s family would get to know more about Chinese way of life, which according to Amy portrayed bad manners (Tan). Amy would like to copy the American culture so as to fit in the American society. Throughout most of Amy’s writings, she always presents a situation whereby characters are constantly faced with ‘embarrassing’ moments as a result of their culture being different from that of host citizens. Kingston is also another writer going through cultural struggles. Her aunt is also faced lifestyle struggles to the extent of being thrown out of the house (Kingston). The essays open the eyes of the readers to the reality of life that people generally face when living in a foreign country. By using snapshots and glimpses presented in the essay, Amy feels the readers’ fragmented understanding of the world through provision of knowledge on the existence of other possibilities, having been forgotten among famous painful stories. She is able to pull together narratives detailing the strength of the human spirit. She convinces the readers that the stories should be told. Disfigured needs as well as shadows should not remind us of the past horrors, instead, should testify the strength and survival required for people to stand up against oppression and conflict. By designing our words just like Amy, we become capable of creating new stories about survival. Works Cited Amy Tan. "Fish Cheeks." www.portal.bentonvillek12.org. 29 November 2014 . 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