Joy Harjo

According to Campbell, heroes ”recover what has been lost or [they] discover some life-giving elixir” (1). In the novel, The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, the character Jing-Mei Woo fits into the criteria of being a hero because efewfhydwfe. After her mother Suyuan passes away, Jing-Mei is asked to take her mother’s spot in the Joy Luck Club. During one of the meeting of the Joy Luck Club, Jing-Mei faces her call to adventure when her mother’s friends tell her that…

elements used in writing. The journey of Suyuan in the historical fiction novel, The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, is characterized through the use of style, plot and motif by establishing tone, emphasizing motivation and characterizing relationships throughout the novel. Tan’s use of style is one of, if not the most, prevalent literary elements used in the selected passage. Style used in the given excerpt of, The Joy Luck Club, helps Tan to illustrate the tone and mood of the story. One element…

In “The Struggle to be an American Girl,” Elizabeth Wong explores the journey to find an identity and a sense of belonging through the eyes of an immigrant child caught between two cultures. As a child, Wong rejects her cultural heritage in favor of attempting to blend in with the society around her, a decision that haunts her into adulthood. Wong’s desire to be American leads her to reject the traditions of her family, not realizing until she is older the significance of preserving those…

“Two Kinds” is a story based on a mother and daughter, and how they had their own opinions on how the daughter should be. The mother wanted the best for her daughter, but she also wanted her daughter become something she wasn’t, a child prodigy. The daughter tried to please her mother but in the end she just wanted to be herself, to stick to her own mindset, not her mother's. She tried everything in beginning that her mother wanted her to do, but later grew out of trying to please her mom…

The rhetorical devices tone and parallelism are used in both the memoir, Funny In Farsi, by Firoozeh Dumas, and the graphic novel, American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang in order to entertain readers and develop the over-arching theme of self-acceptance. Dumas uses colloquial and comic tones in Funny In Farsi in order to keep readers engaged and understate the impact of the hardships she faced on her road to self-acceptance. In the chapter “I Ran and I Ran and I Ran”, Dumas tells the story of…

Family are the friends we do not pick by ourselves, but are born into. “The dress” by Julia Darling is a short story about the sisters Rachel and Flora, and their mother. The story focuses on the deterioration of the sister’s relationship but also on their relationship to the mother. The story also focuses on what happens to a family when it is missing love and communication. Throughout the story, the main topic is a certain dress, and this leads to a dispute having immense consequences. In the…

In the story Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai, Ha is a girl who has lived in Saigon for her whole life. When the war gets dangerously close to home she is forced to flee her home. In the panic of war Ha and her family leave everything but what is necessary. With her move to America challenges follow. Bullying, racism, and lack of language skills are challenges that all refugees face. Inside Out and Back Again, provides an example of the universal experience of refugees. In Ha’s story,…

Amy Tan is a persuasive author because of her works such as, “Mother Tongue”, “A Pair of Tickets” and “The Joy Luck Club”. These works portray the mother-daughter relationship which is considered a spiritual act of connectedness. Some of her works also portray the negative side of this mother-daughter relationship. Another main thing that’s in Tan’s Stories is the “conflict faced by Chinese Americans who find themselves alienated both from their American milieu and from their Chinese parents and…

Reader-Based Analysis: “Two Kinds” focuses on a mother and daughter’s relationship. Jing-Mei’s mother faced many hardships in China. The mother lost so many near and dear to her. For the mother, America was the country to offer them great living and opportunities. Jing-Mei’s mother wanted to see her daughter as a successful person. Jing-Mei's mother classifies success for her daughter as being brilliant at something, therefore, Jing-Mei was forced to take piano lessons in order to be a child…

The legend of Mulan, a brave young Chinese girl who pretends to be a man and joins the army in order to help her old father, is an example of stories of women characters that take the non-traditional role of warrior. This figure that challenges traditional role models had been a source of inspiration for many young Chinese girls. Inspired by this legend, Maxine Hong Kingston narrates the powerful memories that she recalls of growing up in a Chinese-American family. In her book The Warrior…