Analysis Of Champion Of The World By Maya Angelou And Fish Cheeks

Some of us have repeatedly taken for granted what our culture has to offer. Certain individuals spend too much time pretending to be something they are not and too often forget to embrace the fact they are special in their own way. Others constantly judge people because of where they come from. Many think they are better than others and discriminate upon them heavily. Society has played a huge impact on the acceptance of cultural diversity over time and influenced negative beliefs to many in order to portray the view of a perfect individual. In “Champion of the World” by Maya Angelou and “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan we learn about the differences from white Americans through the perspective of different races and point of views presented. Maya …show more content…
She starts off by introducing us to a fourteen year old teenage girl as the narrator, who is afraid to be judged for her Chinese culture by the minister’s son, her crush. Amy gives us a sense of what it is like being part of Chinese culture while living in America. While some of us can relate to having a crush on someone and being afraid of them judging you for the worst, not all of us can relate to being part of the Chinese culture. The narrator portrays the feeling of being a teenager and yearning to fit in right off the bat when she states in the first paragraph, “For Christmas I prayed for…a slim new American nose.” You can quickly pick up her desperate tone in order to be a white American. The setting of the story is a traditional Chinese family hosting a Christmas Eve dinner and having a minister and his family over as guests. She depicts her lack of excitement by discussing the menu her mother is cooking in an undesirable way for example she states, “A slimy rock cod with bulging eyes that pleaded not to be thrown into a pan of hot oil.” The narrator is not at all pleased with the idea for she is afraid of being embarrassed in front of the minister’s son. While eating dinner she portrays how embarrassed she feels of her family and the way they eat in front of the minister and his family. She describes her shame by saying, “My relatives licked the ends of their chopsticks…, dipping them into the dozen or so plates of food.” The theme of this story is about feeling ashamed to show who you truly are as well as your loved ones and where you come from. One of the most influential parts in the story is when the narrator is humiliated by her father when making a humorous remark of her favorite food when saying, “Amy, your favorite,” and the narrator responds by stating, “I wanted to