A Pair Of Tickets

In the story “A Pair of Tickets” by Amy Tan, a young woman named Jing-Mei travels upon a journey into finding her culture. Along the way she takes many different stops in which enriches her knowledge of her background. Setting plays a major role in this particular story as she travels to a foreign land in hope of finding where she came from. The external setting in the story has an immense impact on what is going on internally with Jing-Mei, the narrator. The setting in Tan’s work explores the relationship of place, heritage, and ethnic identity all while giving the readers a deeper insight on the characters within. For Jing-Mei, not feeling Chinese in the U.S. leads her to adventure out of her comfort zone and embark on a journey to China, her mother’s homeland. All stories take place at a certain time and place. Within a story, the setting allows the readers to better understand the characters involved. “A Pair of Tickets” is set as up as a journey to the readers in the very beginning of the story, explaining that Jing-Mei and her father purchased a pair of tickets to travel across the world to China. This is all in hopes to reconnect with the long lost twins that her now deceased mother once had. Suyan, Jing-Mei’s mother, had a dream that one day they would all be reconnected again after Suyan had to abandon them while being a refugee. The first part where setting appears is in the very first line, “The minute …show more content…
It’s about a woman finding her place, heritage, and her ethnic identity all through the landscape of China. The setting not only affects her externally but also is what causes and solves her internal struggles. It allows the readers to explore deeper into Jing-Mei’s passage of discovering herself. She disregarded this part of her life for so long until she finally sees the part of herself that is Chinese. It is her family; it is in her