Ode to Joy

Analysis: Kingston recollects her mother’s story telling about heroic Chinese females, similar to Fa Mu Lan, the young lady who went to fight for her father and returned a national legend. Kingston thinks her mother prepares her with the legends of solid women that she could develop into. That is what made Kingston feel that she can be a warrior woman; it is not impossible. In Kingston’s fantasy, she started to follow a bird up into the mounts until she passed by a shelter of an old couples,…

In the Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kinston uncovers genuine China to pursuers through her accumulation of "talk-stories" from a Chinese mother to her little girl. Through her discussion stories, Brave Orchid broadens Chinese convention into the lives of her American kids and enhances their creative energy. While Brave Orchid's narrating is instructive and useful, it additionally emphasizes male centric and misanthropic messages of customary Chinese culture. In addition, as Brave Orchid does not…

The Joy Luck Club (Two Kinds) Essay The Joy Luck Club centers on the theme of hope. This is articulated through interactions between mother and daughter, a mother’s hope for a better life for her daughter, and a daughter’s hopes to meet her mother’s expectations. Having dealt with hardships and struggles in the mother’s own life, she becomes so focused on giving her daughter a better life at all cost, but does not see the consequences of her actions. She is blinded 
by the possibilities and…

Amy Tan, a Chinese-American freelance writer, is known for her novel The Joy Luck Club, which is mainly based on her and her mother’s life experiences. She was born in 1952 in Oakland, California. However, after her brother and father dead in 1966, her family moved to Switzerland to start a new life. Then she returned to America for college, and finally obtained her doctor degree in linguistics at UC Berkeley. In 1987, when her mother was diagnosed with a severe illness, they came back to China…

Loung and Chou are both girls living in Cambodia. what will happen when they are separated and only one can go to America? Loung went to America and Chou stayed in Cambodia although they are both visited by their dead parents frequently, through dreams and memories. Ma and Pa help Loung and Chou by being a source of comfort, helping them persevere, and sacrificing themselves for Loung and Chou's survival. Ma and Pa are a source of comfort to Chou and Loung. Ma and Pa comfort Chou by reassuring…

The Unexpected Hero In Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club, four immigrant Chinese women living in San Francisco start new families and are drawn to one another from the hardships of their past and the optimism of tomorrow. They form the Joy Luck Club. Author and professor of literature Joseph Campbell defines a hero as one “who [gives] his or her life” to a greater cause. The hero often discovers or accomplishes “something beyond the normal range of achievement and experience” (Campbell 1).…

There are many heroic characters in books and movies, but there is a particular hero that I would love to be, even for just a day, and her name is Fa Mulan. During her times, women were not respected in China and were only seen as wives and housekeepers. However, Mulan did not fit into either of those roles, but that did not discourage her from discovering a way to make a difference for her family and her country. She was a slim, ordinary farmer girl until her military boot camp training…

The cultural differences described by Amy Tan in her short story, "Two Kinds", stand out boldly. There are two main themes described throughout the story, which would be conflicts between mother and daughter, and cultural differences. Both play a big part to contribute to the other. Therefore, in this essay, the focus will land on the cultural differences. Such a bold statement to readers is clear when Amy Tan uses sentences such as " "You look like a Negro Chinese," she lamented, as if I had…

Silvia Zervos is an outgoing, kind, and talented person. Almost everyone has good times and bad times: Silvia is no different. The saddest moment in her life was when her grandmother died when Silvia was 7 years old. Her and her family traveled to Chicago, Silvia thinking they were going to visit her grandmother. She didn’t find out her grandmother had died until she got there. When she was told the saddening news, it broke her. “My grandmother was always there for me.” With sad times comes good…

Maxine Hong Kingston finds it hard to live in America as the daughter of Chinese emigrants because there are two different expectations of her. She criticizes the patriarchal society of both the United States and China that she is caught between: Once I get outside the house, what bird might call me; on what horse could I ride away? Marriage and childbirth strengthen the swordswoman, who is not a maid like Joan of Arc. Do the women’s work; then do more work, which will become ours too. [...]…