“We are here! We are here! We are here! We are here!” cried the little people of Who-ville as they tried to communicate with the outside world in Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who! The inability to effectively communicate with others can make one feel as small as the tiny people of Who-ville. A failure to communicate is the common theme found in the three popular short stories: Jealous Husband Returns in Form of a Parrot by Robert Olen Butler, Two Kinds by Amy Tan, and The Management of Grief by Bharati Mukherjee. The author’s of these three short stories do an admirable job in conveying their message through their characters. That is, communication is an essential element in all relationships and a failure to communicate ruins relationships,
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She in turn, perhaps in trying to gain her husband’s attention or get him to communicate his feelings, cultivated that jealousy by flaunting other men in front of him in their conversations at home and at office parties. Ironically, her husband did love her, but was incapable of communicating his ardent “connection to her” (3). In fact, the husband admits, “I was working on saying nothing, even if it meant locking myself up” (2). Unfortunately, this failure to communicate left a void in the wife’s life that drove her to seek intimacy with other men. The lack of communication ruined their relationship, created jealous intolerance, and eventually regret as the husband realized, in his bird state, “I can never say what is in my heart to her. Never” (5). Second, a mother and daughter’s bond is severely injured by their failure to communicate, creating intolerant attitudes and avoidable feelings of regrets, in Amy Tan’s, Two Kinds. An immigrant from China, where she lost everyone and everything in her life, Jing-mei’s mother set about training her daughter to …show more content…
An airplane, bound for India, is bombed mid-flight and the families of the victims were left to wait and eventually identify the remains of their loved ones. The Canadian government’s attempt to provide financial relief for the families of the victims was met with uncooperativeness. Judith, an appointee of the provincial government, recruited Shaila Bhave, who lost her husband and two sons in the airplane crash, in an attempt to overcome the “complications of culture, language, and customs” (Mukherjee 977). However, a failure to communicate resulted in Judith’s intolerant attitude towards their culture, depicted in her description of the family’s lack of cooperation as “stubbornness and ignorance” (985). Another cultural barrier existed between Shaila’s neighbor, Kusum, and her daughter Pam, who had also lost loved ones to the crash. Their failure to communicate derived from a multicultural barrier. Kusum, an immigrant from India, clung to her Indian culture, while her daughter Pam, raised in Canada, had submerged herself in the westernized culture—working at McDonalds, dating Canadian boys, shopping at malls, and wearing tight clothing. Kusum’s grief leads her to yell at Pam, “Leave me alone….You know what I want to do? If I didn’t have
She in turn, perhaps in trying to gain her husband’s attention or get him to communicate his feelings, cultivated that jealousy by flaunting other men in front of him in their conversations at home and at office parties. Ironically, her husband did love her, but was incapable of communicating his ardent “connection to her” (3). In fact, the husband admits, “I was working on saying nothing, even if it meant locking myself up” (2). Unfortunately, this failure to communicate left a void in the wife’s life that drove her to seek intimacy with other men. The lack of communication ruined their relationship, created jealous intolerance, and eventually regret as the husband realized, in his bird state, “I can never say what is in my heart to her. Never” (5). Second, a mother and daughter’s bond is severely injured by their failure to communicate, creating intolerant attitudes and avoidable feelings of regrets, in Amy Tan’s, Two Kinds. An immigrant from China, where she lost everyone and everything in her life, Jing-mei’s mother set about training her daughter to …show more content…
An airplane, bound for India, is bombed mid-flight and the families of the victims were left to wait and eventually identify the remains of their loved ones. The Canadian government’s attempt to provide financial relief for the families of the victims was met with uncooperativeness. Judith, an appointee of the provincial government, recruited Shaila Bhave, who lost her husband and two sons in the airplane crash, in an attempt to overcome the “complications of culture, language, and customs” (Mukherjee 977). However, a failure to communicate resulted in Judith’s intolerant attitude towards their culture, depicted in her description of the family’s lack of cooperation as “stubbornness and ignorance” (985). Another cultural barrier existed between Shaila’s neighbor, Kusum, and her daughter Pam, who had also lost loved ones to the crash. Their failure to communicate derived from a multicultural barrier. Kusum, an immigrant from India, clung to her Indian culture, while her daughter Pam, raised in Canada, had submerged herself in the westernized culture—working at McDonalds, dating Canadian boys, shopping at malls, and wearing tight clothing. Kusum’s grief leads her to yell at Pam, “Leave me alone….You know what I want to do? If I didn’t have