Introduction: - Joan Didion’s Play it as it Lays, Junot Diaz’ Drown, and Maxine Hong Kingstons’ The Woman Warrior all demonstrate different intersections of race, class and gender. Each novel provides a unique perspective of growing up in American society. In Play it as it Lays, Didon dictates a story of Maria Wyeth, a Caucasian wealthy actress, struggling with depression. Contrastly, Diaz’ introduces Junior, a Domincan male, who spent his childhood living in a third world country, and struggles with poverty even after moving to the States. Finally, Kingston shares her hardships of adjusting into the role of a Chinese-American woman in her memoir, The Woman Warrior.
It reminds me of Diary of Anne Frank. 5.) I think this book is like an Autobiography and an eye-witness book as well. I think that because Anchee witnessed this with her eyes, everything that has happened in her life. I think it’s also an autobiography because it’s mainly about her life, and what she has gone through growing up in China during that period.
As she is able to separate, she looks back at her culture fondly rather than with anger. The last talk-story Kingston adds to her memoir is a collaboration of China and America, old and new. She leads into the story with, “The beginning is hers her mother’s, the ending mine Kingston” (206). Kingston acknowledges that while she may still be strongly influenced by her mother and her Chinese culture, she is in the process of breaking away to create a personal identity. This is the first time that Kingston explicitly tells which additions to the story are her own.
Yung asks herself “What sociohistorical forces were at play that can explain social change for Chinese American women in the first half of the twentieth century?” (Yung, 5) The book tells of their oppression in America through prostitution, gender roles, anti-Chinese immigration laws, and class discrimination. Also, she examines the rise of Christianity, the YWCA, The New Life Association, Chinese women’s role in the war, and support within Chinese communities in America. Yung states “the groundwork laid by our foremothers for a better life at home, in the workplace and in the larger society has not been lost on today’s generation of Chinese American women (Yung, 292). The title “Unbound Feet” is a perfect representation of Yung’s research on immigration and settling in The States. It represents the bound feet that Chinese women of high class had when arriving in America, to “ensure that women did not ‘wander’ too far outside the household gate” (Yung, 19).
The novel traces the psychological development of the American daughter and her final acceptance of the Chinese mother and what the Chinese mother stands for. It is interesting to note that when Jing-mei Woo is asked by her three “aunts” to go to China in order to fulfill her mother’s long-cherished wish to meet her lost twin babies, Jing-mei shocks and upsets
The Role of Women The Death of Woman Wang provides a unique look into life in China during the sixteen hundreds. Society was dictated by custom as well as severe and specific litigation regarding personal relationships and actions. In particular, the role that women had in the society is portrayed in depth. The struggles and treatment of women provide the reader with an understanding of the society and what life as a woman was like in China during this time period. A woman’s position in China during the sixteen hundreds was drastically different than that of contemporary Western society.
Carleen Henry-Palmer English 101 Professor Askary Essex County College 3 June 2013 Palmer 1 Carleen Henry-Palmer Professor Nina Askary English 101 3 June 2013 Snapshot: Lost Lives of Women Strength and inspiration comes from our family, elders, past generations and their stories. In Amy Tan’s “Snapshot: Lost Lives of Women”, she attempts to reach, touch and appeal her reader’s emotion. Although the story of her grandmother’s life seems to be a common story of the Nineteenth Century Era within the Chinese cultural context, it reveals another intense story to us. This delicate message is about the author’s grandmother’s relentless spirit that has become her muse to write and share these historical facts with her audience. She uses a family photo to describe the bondage and enslavement of Chinese women in her grandmother’s culture.
The poem begins with the perspective of the sister in China as she describes the tradition of her people and the adaptations they have made. After some brief background into the Chinese culture, Song moves to focus on the relationship between the speaker and her sister. “And the daughters were grateful: They never left home. To move freely was a luxury stolen from them at birth” (Song); Song uses these lines to describe the realities that come with living in China and the idea that one may never actually leave to discover America. In the first part of the poem Song conveys that the life lived in China is not a glorious one.
In the beginning of “The struggle to be an All American girl”, Elizabeth Wong started out with describing Chinese school in her living town and wrote about her and her brother’s experience of changing their culture from Chinese to American since they were children. They went to the Chinese school because her mother pretention to keep their cultural estate even though they hated it. At the school, they learned not only Chinese but politeness as well. The school in her memory smelled like “mothballs or dirty closet”, and the principal was look like a “maniacal child killer”. She also described her learning Chinese like the most boring thing in the word by using some words as: “kowtow”, “chant”, “sing-san-ho” and ideographs letters.
Mother vs. Daughter In Amy Tan's “Two Kinds” two characters, a mother and a daughter, reveal many negative traits. The mother is a Chinese-American woman who has lost her twin baby girls and her first husband back in China. Jing-Mei is daughter with the mother's second husband in America where the mother thinks she has found a new beginning. Jing-Mei's mother believes that in America, “You can be the best anything”(194).