Psychoanalytic Criticism in A Pair of Tickets by Amy Tan - Term Paper Example

Psychoanalytic Criticism in “A Pair of Tickets" by Amy Tan Psychoanalysis is a theory based on the assumption that, no behavior is accidental. All the behaviors that people have originate from the experiences that they went through in the past. Therefore, Psychoanalytic criticism is arguing either positively or negatively on the reason why people exhibit certain behaviors in their lives. The voice of a mother and daughter is one of the subjects that feminist scholars have critically looked at. Scholars have captured the issue of western feminists with the literature of matrilineage. Amy Tan in her scholarly works has written stories on Chinese Ladies who went through great suffering in their past life, and this has really affected their present life. Hence, this article will look at the voice of a mother and feminist subjectivity from a psychoanalytic perspective. Basing on the story A Pair of Tickets by Amy Chan, through psychoanalytic criticism, this paper explores the techniques that the author uses to expose the experiences of the Joy luck mothers in China, and how these experiences shape their present characters, as well as their daughters’ lives. Amy Tan is a prolific and acclaimed writer, for the past one decade she has specialized in mother daughter relationships. He has explored his creativity in storytelling, which can be traced from her book the Joy Luck Club where she explores mother-daughter voices persuasively and consistently. A Pair of Tickets, a short story in the Joy Luck Club is expressed with creativity and femininity. In addition, it is written with an approach of maternal subjectivity. In examining Tan’s work, it is clear that she has adapted the Chinese talk story in story telling between daughters and their mothers as a matrilineal reclamation trope. The story, A Pair of Tickets revolves around the discovery of identity and self-awareness of a young woman, Jing-mei, who travels to China for the first time having spent all her life in America. Tan uses storytelling as a powerful tool to enable her characters who hail from a minority group to tell their life stories, which they might have forgotten when they migrated to another country. To them, this was to bridge the gap between the present and the past. It is a survival skill where immigrants of the older generation, authenticate and articulate the essence of their existence, and in order to preserve their cultural identity, they pass it on to the younger generation. From the feminist matrilineal perspective, Tan uses story telling device to show how mothers told their long hidden secrets about their past. In the stories, they told their daughters the pain and victimization they went through, and how they managed to survive. Through storytelling, mothers and daughters are able to redefine and reclaim themselves, as well as discover their own voices. Tan cast his story A pair of tickets in the form of talk story, which portrays a Chinese oral tradition. In many respects, the talk story Tan uses meet the needs of the mothers who wish to tell their past to their daughters. From the definition of talk story, it is a means of changing the private voices of the mothers telling the story to a narrative that can be told to the public. The women in Tan’s stories, who are Chinese American immigrants, were vulnerable and due to that, they decided to remain silent (Yin-Lin 25). This silence was because of the shame, guilt, and helplessness that they felt in their past life in china. They also used the silence as a strategy of surviving in the new land as a minority, which is trying to adapt to a life in America. Talk stories provide Chinese mothers with a sense of empowerment and security. When they use a culturally familiar means of expressing themselves and communicating their pain and miseries, they tend to say all that has been disturbing them without hiding anything. Although they are free to say, anything the talk story only allows them to share, but keep a distance with the audience. Tan’s immigrant mother maintains the silence and only shares the things she thinks are important to be shared, or have helped her to build her life in one way, or another. Despite the liberation that the talk story gives the Chinese American immigrants, which frees them from being stereotyped and silenced, they go through a rough time struggling with misunderstandings and misconceptions. The main reason for the feeling of disfranchisement by these Chinese mothers is that they feel inferior because of the disparities in their lifestyles with the people of American origin. This disparity arises from their identities and their widened difference in cultural perspectives. Another reason is their use of language; there are several instances in which the mothers cannot articulate the English words correctly; hence, one finds it had to know what they actually mean (Igeleke et al. 237). Even their American daughters find it had to understand what their mothers say in their broken English that is affected by their first language. In "A Pair of Tickets" by Amy Tan, the relationship between Jig-mei with her mother is used to show how storytelling is employed by Tan to resolve conflicts between mother and a daughter. The story telling also helps to appreciate the forms of mother daughter voices. In the story A Pair of Tickets, Jig-mei tells about the quest that her mother had for her long lost daughters. Jig-mei recalls her mother telling her Kweilin story and according to her, this story had a different ending every time the mother told it to her, and this shows the good story telling skills that her mother had (Kim & Tan 54). The Kweilin story is all about how Jig-mei’s mother managed to escape from Kweilin during the invasion of China by the Japanese. As she was trying to escape, Jig-mei’s mother, Suyuan Woo became exhausted to the extent that she had to live her belongings behind including her two baby girls. Suyuan Woo was later rescued, and she started a search for her daughters, but, unfortunately, she died without finding them. In the joy club, Jig-Mei’s mother is the one who initiates the weekly tradition. In this occasion, Suyuan Woo and her sisters used to play mah Jog and feast together. In the year, that she passed on she was the one to be the host; therefore, the aunts felt that Jig-mei being her daughter was the best person to replace her. She gladly accepted, but while, at the meeting, she was asked to fulfil the long-life wishes that her mother had. Jig-mei’s mother had wished to meet her long lost daughters; thus, Jig-mei was to go and meet them on her mother’s behalf. When she is told about the journey to China, for a moment feelings of confusion and doubt arise in her mind. She feels that she does not know her mother well; therefore, she cannot represent her as expected. The uncertainty that she feels show the division between the two national and cultural identities. Jig-mei finally agrees to go and fulfill her mother’s wishes. She makes a trip with her father to China to meet her mother’s long lost daughters. On the trip, she faces a conflict where people are trying to establish whether she is an American or a Chinese. When Jig-mei reaches China, a sense of belonging and identification emerges, she says, “The minute our train leaves the Hon Kong border and enters Shenzhen, China, I feel different. My mother was, right I am becoming Chinese.” (Kim & Tan 56). As Jig-mei reaches China, she feels like her body is undergoing some transformations. She identifies herself with the Chinese because she feels like a Chinese. As she boards the plane, her senses tend to make her feel like she is two in one (Hooper 23). Her impressions are confirmed when she meets her sisters at the airport. “Together we look like our mother.” (Kim & Tan 56). From this statement, one can tell that Jig-mei confirms that they resemble their mother. Even if their mother was dead to them, she seemed alive at that moment of their reunion. The quest to meet the long lost daughters turned out to be a mutual reunion between the lost daughters in honor of their mother. Interestingly, Jig-mei’s joy luck aunts originally propelled this issue. The aunts function as substitute mothers who should attend to her needs, narrate to her, and fulfill her mother’s story. The mother line that Jig-mei- has formed is not intentional although, it stretches horizontally and vertically linking sisters, mothers, daughters and aunties together (Tan & West 45). Therefore, the story A pair of tickets represents a journey of a daughter who is searching for her mother’s voice and her own voice in the face of culture and traditions. In conclusion, one can tell that the story A Pair of Tickets by Amy Tan in the Joy Club is an expression of the painful experiences that the mothers from China went through, and how these experiences shaped their characters, and influenced the lives of their daughters. Tan uses storytelling and talk story to provide an avenue through which these mothers could express themselves. The Chinese mothers who were silent for a long time decide to break their silent and tell their daughters their experiences. In other words, the Chinese women are trying to recover their lost authenticity and reconstruct their cultural wholeness and feminism. The story also tells on the strong bond found between the mother and her daughter. Tan represents the Chinese American immigrant mothers, as people who have the desire to empower their daughters through their experiences and to impart some wisdom into them. Through the psychoanalytic criticism, the origin of the characters of the silent character in Jig-mei’s mother can be explained. Work cited Hooper, Glen. The Joy Luck Club. Marrickville, N.S.W: Science Press, 1999. Print Igeleke, Ebony; Maya, Marie; Kristina, Huddleston; Stephen, Fife. "The Joy Luck Club."Journal of Feminist Family Therapy. 22.3 (2010): 236-241. Print. Kim, Susan, and Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. New York, NY: Dramatists Play Service, 2009. Print. Tan, Amy, and West, Clare. The Joy Luck Club. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print. Yin-Lin, Yu, Relocating Marternal Subjectivity: Story-telling and Mother-Daughter Voices in Army Tan’s Joy Club.Third space. A journal of feminist & culture. (2004): 23-35. Print. Read More