Culture and Women In “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, and “How to date a browngirl, blackgirl, whitegirl or halfie” by Junot Diaz, both authors elaborate on culture, and how it shapes the outlook on women. In Jamaica Kincaid's “Girl” a mother enforces her cultures strong beliefs on appropriate female behavior onto her daughter. To do so, she displays her parental authority with a series of short commands influenced by her culture. A sense of naivety can be seen in the young girl after questioning her mother's request. The culture associated with “Girl” has a definite attitude towards women, believing they should live a modest, conservative lifestyle.
I mean, we have kicked people out for breaking the rules and only then can we add someone” (Wiseman 37). This book follows a story line that takes the reader through basic understanding of their daughters to then full depth examination of themselves, their children, and their relationships. In conclusion it aids mothers in changing or perfecting their techniques to better help them relate to their daughters. Two specific literary devices she uses are anecdotes and emotional appeal. She places anecdotes from herself, teen girls and mothers in the book to help mother relate their situation and better understand situations of other teens and mothers.
In Janice Mirikitani’s poem “Breaking Tradition,” the speaker reflects on the different generations of women. Her exploration corresponds with her struggle with living within the Asian-American society. With the stories of a grandmother, mother and daughter, she shows that every generation of women have to live with the burden of womanhood and everything that comes with it. However, each generation comes with its differences as well. The speaker presents examples of the roles of women in order to set a standard of comparison between the three generations and to show the differences in expectations of women within them.
She wants to return to her virtuousness self and have a source of strength and inspiration. “Theme” Coming of Age Like many other books on memoirs and coming of age, “Almost A Woman” moves along the common thematic lines like parent-child conflicts, sibling rivalries, the path to adulthood, friendships, relationships with the opposite sex, and social issues. It is evident that the transition in coming of age is not easy because of the many challenges Negi and her family faced. For instance, as she comes of age, Esmeralda Santiago takes over the life multi-roles of student, daughter, and interpreter for her family. She lacks the ability to speak good English, her family is poor, and she is alienated because she comes from a different culture.
Since the 1960's, feminism has challenged the traditional stereotypes of a woman's role as mother and housewife within a patriarchal family. It also raises girls' expectations and ambitions with regard to careers and family. These changes are partly reflected in media. A good illustration of this is McRobbie's comparison of girl’s magazine in the 1970's, where they stressed the importance of marriage to the 1990's, where it was more focused on career and independence. Changes in the family and employment are also creating changes in girls' ambitions, which is supported by Sue Sharpe's research where she compared the results of interviews she carried out with girls in the 1970's and 1990's, where in the 1970's the girls had low ambitions and their priorities was love, marriage, husbands and children before careers.
He is in an awkward position in this short story. Daisy is a brown girl who is neighbours with Ben. She is eager to play with him, “…Darted across Finchley Row,” but Ben does not treat her the way he should he speaks to her rudely, “… In a muffled voice,” and is racist to her, “…You’re a nigger.” Daisy gets really hurt by the way Ben acts towards her, Ben says this to Daisy because of his mother and what she has taught him. However, Ben starts feeling sorry for her and lets her play with him, his feelings change because he realises he is wrong by treating her like that, his personality shines through. This leads Ben feeling paranoid as he keeps glancing toward his house just in case his mother sees them as his mother does not like Daisy.
What does it mean to be a woman? Where does it all originate? Prior to the 18th century women had no equality they had to combat social and cultural inequalities .Soon after feminism started to take root and in today’s world women see themselves on par with men. However they still identify themselves by the role they fulfil. If you ask a woman the question “who are you?’ immediately the response would be mother, sister, wife, grandmother or they give their professional title.
Charlotte Temple The story of Charlotte Temple is not just another novel. It is not just a story about an innocent, naïve and misguided young girl that has to live with the consequences of her bad choices in life. This novel is an attempt to educate and guide young women at the time into making the right decisions in life. The novel illustrates a number of different issues for women during the time period, but the main issue or decision Rowson is trying to educate the women on is marriage. Marriage is a major theme in this novel and the novel gives different examples of marriage.
Amy Tan's short story "Two Kinds" focuses on multiple themes in the relationship between a Chinese mother and her Americanized daughter who in turn assumes she must reject her mother in order to find her sense of self, coupled with trying to assimilate into American society. The main character and narrator is Jing-Mei who is also the protagonist of the story. As well as her mother Mrs. Woo who is portrayed as the antagonist, and is always urging Jing-Mei to try new things and discover new talents. Jing-Mei's mother believes that with a little hard work her daughter can be anything she wants to be in America and is determined to make Jing-Mei a child prodigy but we have to question Mrs. Woo’s ways and ask ourselves; do the ends truly justify the terrible means?
TOPIC: Write an essay about “The Struggle to be an All-American girl” is written by Elizabeth Wong. ∞•∞ Living in a cross culture is a good change for you to experience variety things. On the other hand, it brings some difficulties also, such as how to adapt to the new environment, relinquishing your own culture or assume another culture. After reading the article “The struggle to be an All American girl” written by Elizabeth Wong, who had a struggle to be American girl, but it’s not only a struggle to change her mother’s thinking, it is also the struggle to free herself. 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.