Amy Tan Essay

"Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan Amy Tan, in her narrative novel - "Mother Tongue", recounts her thoughts of her mother 's "broken English". Tan 's purpose is to explicitly express the influences on her life exerted by "Mother Tongue", in order to attract readers with similar feelings and experience. She employs delicate rhetorical arrangements such as classification order, narrative anecdotes, and comparison. These delicate rhetorical arrangements are effectively beneficial to Tan 's purpose of…

Logos, or logic, involves looking for arguments that make sense in a piece. Amy Tan’s essay is very logical. It makes complete sense, and is simple to understand. Being that it is a narrative, she uses examples to back up her statements about English. She tells the stories of her mother dealing with the stockbroker and the hospital as means to make her point clearer. Ethos looks at the author’s credibility. Tan is a well-known writer, and does a lot of public speaking. We can trust her…

In the short story “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, the author creates a conflict between a Chinese mother and her daughter. The relationship between the mother who wanted her daughter to be prodigy, and her daughter who refused to be prodigy is presented (43). She uses dialogue, irony, similes and metaphors to illustrate and set her writing. Tan’s main message that stands out in the story is parents-to-kids relationship, in this case mother-to-daughter relationship. With all the details given by the…

In “Mother Tongue”, Amy Tan gives us an insight into a world where diversity in spoken English is wrong. In this case, the limitation that accompanies those who speak the infamous ‘broken’ English. Furthermore, she tells us that the world chooses to believe that those who speak it (imperfect English) are necessarily inferior to its standard counterpart. This discrimination towards various ‘Englishes’ is mainly addressed as a major misinterpretation; one she is deeply concerned about. While it…

born into; they are surrounded by the atmosphere presented by their family. There are numerous aspects that impacts a person's perspective, culture has greatly influenced the way we view others and the world through our behaviors and opinions. In Amy Tan's novel, Two Kinds, she proves that culture can influence the way people view and behave towards others and the world. For example, Jing-Mei's mother behaves because of her Chinese culture,…

In the article “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, a Chinese-American writer, shares her idea that we all speak a different kind of “Englishes” unconsciously and that we are sometimes categorized by the way we speak. Tan supports her argument by giving examples of her family's cultural background and describing how her mother was discriminated by retailers, stockbrokers, and doctors because her mother’s English seemed improper. Tan explains that language does not have to be uniformed and completely…

“Two Kinds”, authored by Amy Tan, is an inspirational short story that revolves around the idea of becoming independent and successful. The story follows Jing-mei who is the daughter of chinese immigrant, Suyuan Woo. Woo has looked to America as a fresh start for her daughter and herself after losing such great loss back home; her first husband, parents, two daughters, and twin baby girls. Coming from a tragic past, she has hope for Mei and tries to prevent her daughter from having the miserable…

Representation of Two Kinds In “Two Kinds”, Amy Tan writes about a relationship between a mother and a daughter. Jing Mei’s mother strives to persuade her daughter to become famous, but Jing Mei just wants to be herself and make her own decisions. Jing Mei’s mother knows what great opportunities are provided for her daughter because of the “American Dream”. The mother hopes Jing Mei will be a successful prodigy and even refers her as a future “Chinese Shirley Temple”. When Jing Mei’s…

The Essay Mother Tongue was written in 1990 by Amy Tan. This was written for people like her, who had trouble accepting the way their parent´s spoke. It was written to share an experience not many have and is about what she had to do because of her mother´s speech. These things can be known by inferred from the text and read the small bio before the reading. This text takes the form of an essay. this is apparent because it is written in a more formal fashion and is written in spaced paragraphs…

In Two Kinds by Amy Tan, Jing-mei Woo is more of an ethnic minority than portraying an American child (woman). Because of her mother’s actions, and cultural traditions from China, Jing-mei Woo, is not able to embrace the American culture. Eventually, Jing-mei compares her life in America to life in China, resulting in a rebellion. Likewise, since she was a child, Jing-mei Woo was forced to be everything she wasn’t, even when she tried to stay true to herself, the temptation of being a worthy…