I Want A Wife, Or Maybe A Husband As I read Judy Brady's article, "I Want A Wife," I found it to be full of humor and witticism. Brady mentions many relevant points for wanting a wife throughout the essay that I tend to agree with, but she always uses sarcasm and takes it a bit too far. As I continued to read, I realized that there are some comments that compare to my own life experiences. Brady does a good job at getting the reader's attention rather quickly by using the title " I Want A Wife", considering that she is a female, and the date when the essay was written (December 1971). These observations, coupled with her never ending excuses of why she wants a wife throughout the essay, kept me interested and also had me considering how they might compare to my life experiences.
In her writing career, she has completed a lot of good work, which shows her thought and experiences. Tan considers her relationship with her own mother, concentrating on the different “Englishes” she and her mother use to communicate with each other and with the world. Tan’s mother moves from Shanghai to The United States. She is not good at English. When she communicates with people, they cannot fully understand what she says.
By using her emotion she touches bases with the reader. Making ideas that are a harsh reality actually thought about and reasoned with. Being that she is a mother as well as wife, she knows the strains society can put on a woman and how hard it is to juggle everything that a wife must get 1 done in order to please her husband. This is where the tool ethos comes into play as she writes, “I belong to that classification of people known as wives. I am A Wife.
She says she is emotionally connected with the letters and whenever she reads the letters she remembers her father talking to him. She shares some letters which are emotionally rich in content and signs off her speech with a simple but a great message. I think the memories can be best retained in the form of letters. About a decade back, when I attended school I used to write letters to my grandpa and I used to keep a collection of reply letters from him, and used to read the letters again and again till I received the next letter. Truly letters speaks way more than the digital communication.
I found it very difficult to put the book down. It is a book I have already recommended to others especially the women in my life. It was amazing to know the amount of abuse and killings on girls and the struggle for gender equality around the world. By reading these stories we learn that women are not the problem but the solution. I believe this is not only true for the women’s stories in this book, but true for all women.
Lydia is outspoken and completely self-absorbed, even though she is the youngest of the sisters, which foreshadows the trouble she will get into later on in the story. This contrasts hugely with Elizabeth, who is responsible, grounded and far more reserved. This is shown after the ball at Netherfield, when Jane is displaying her gratification of the admiration she received, and Lizzie “felt Jane’s pleasure” – although Elizabeth is not directly concerned with finding a suitable husband, she is able to empathise with Jane. The main plot is that of Elizabeth and Darcy – there were many prejudices between the two; without Darcy stepping in and forcing Wickham to marry Lydia, they would have remained apart. Lydia is incapable of seeing the shame she brings on the family through running away to be married, as shown in her letter to Harriet; “I can hardly write for laughing.” Her thoughtless attitude to marriage is highlighted here – although she is motivated by love, she hasn’t thought about the consequences of what she’s doing.
This idea is later transferred to miscommunication which is an essential part of Tan’s Novels. In “The Joy Luck Club” Amy Tan shows the miscommunication between the two generations and how mothers and daughters are unique through authentic dialect and dialogue. In her books, she presents the conflicting views and the stories of both sides,
She pointed out that mother tongue could affect everyone one of us, just like how she is affecting her husband without noticing. Her husband is not aware of the change of English form and the ‘weirdness’ of this form of English that they used to communicate among their family and the kind of English that she grew up with. It may be misunderstood by others, but to Amy, this type of English is perfectly clear and natural because this is her mother tongue. Her mother tongue is not a barrier in her ability to learn this English language, besides, she consider her mother tongue to be vivid, direct and full of observation and imagery which helped her to shape her way of seeing and expressing things, and to look at this world in a different way. People may consider her mother tongue to be ‘broken’ or ‘fractured’, or in another way they consider them as ‘limited English’, where people tend to relate limited English and limited perception together.
“Every generation laughs at fashions but follows religiously the new.” (Henry David Thoreau) The relationship between mother and daughter is indeed a very complicated one to understand. It is even more difficult to comprehend when both are from completely different worlds; two worlds with contrasting ways of thought and clashing opinions. Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club is an excellent example of how mother and daughter can overcome their rough complications by setting aside differences and truly understanding each other. Although cultural differences were one of the major sources for conflicts, other obstacles included generational differences, language barriers, and personal past experiences. Culture was the source of many difficulties between each mother-daughter pair.
The image of this young girl is immediately apparent in Anne’s first diary entry. The reader straight away feels like they are in the position of being Anne’s friend she states; “I hope I will be able to confide everything in you and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.” This however proves to be false. Anne’s refutation of the happening world events causes her to befriend her diary. This naïve girl is further demonstrated through her childish approach to her families’ need to go into hiding saying “That was it. May these sombre words not come true for as long as possible”.