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A pair of tickets analysis
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"A Pair of Tickets" by Amy Tan
In the story "A Pair of Tickets," by Amy Tan, a woman by the name of Jing-mei struggles with her identity as a Chinese female. Throughout her childhood, she "vigorously denied" (857) that she had any Chinese under her skin. Then her mother dies when Jing-Mei is in her 30's, and only three months after her father receives a letter from her twin daughters, Jing-Mei's half sisters. It is when Jing-mei hears her sisters are alive, that she and her dad take a trip overseas to meet her relatives and finally unites with her sisters. This story focuses on a woman's philosophical struggle to accept her true identity.
The protagonist of the story is Jing-mei. She is a flat character who turns out to be dynamic. Throughout her life, she has been very stubborn about accepting her identity. An example of this is when she explains, "I was 15 and had a vigorously denied that I had any Chinese whatsoever under my skin" (857). She shows her dynamic characteristic at the end of the story when she finally does accept her heritage.
The main conflict of this story is Jing-mei's struggle between accepting her identity based on her heritage and not on a personal image. There is no real order in which this conflict is clarified, because the climax and resolution come about at the same time. The conflict is internal due to the fact that she cannot accept her true identity. The climax comes when she finally meets her twin sisters and says, "I get beyond the gate, we run toward each other, all three of us embracing, all hesitations and expectations forgotten" (870). It is then that the resolution comes into play and "After all these years, it can finally be let go" (870). It is at that point, when she can finally a...
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...Also an important quote is when she says, "But today I realize I've never really known what it means to be Chinese. I am thirty-six years old" (857). Even though she was in her 30's and still had that identity crisis, it was uplifting knowing that all it took for her to resolve that conflict was one meeting with her sisters.
The story "A Pair of tickets" examines a woman who has grown up with American
influence all her life and struggles to accept her true identity. Through the story you can
see Jing-mei struggles with her identity for over 30 years, but it finally is resolved once
she is able to meet her twin sisters that have been missing from her life for over 30 years.
Works Cited
Tan, Amy. “A Pair of Tickets.” The Longman Anthology of Short Fiction. Compact
Edition. Ed. Dana Gioia and R.S. Gwynn. New York: Longman, 2001.
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Justina Chen Headley explores in her book Nothing but the Truth (and a few white lies) the search for her protagonist’s identity, Patty Ho, which is a part Taiwanese, part American girl. Headley displays the mother as a one-dimensional parent who is holding onto conservative and traditional Taiwanese values, and is imposing her cultural values onto her daughter as a justification for her strict parenting style.
In Amy Tan's "A Pair of Tickets" (the last chapter of The Joy Luck Club), the understanding of the importance of names is the key to truly apprehend a sacred relationship between mother ("Suyuen") and daughters (June or "Jing-Mei", "Chwun Yu" and "Chwun Hwa").
One striking similarity in the writings is that all characters lose their heritage over time. In “The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl”, Elizabeth was forced to attend Chinese school by her mother to retain her Chinese heritage and to speak proficient Chinese. However, she hated the Chinese School and strongly preferred speaking English over Chinese. She...
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Amy Tan's "A Pair of Tickets," especially, explores the relationship of setting to place, heritage, and ethnic identity. Jing-Mei Woo, the main character, has trouble accepting that she is Chinese, despite her heritage. Jing-Mei Woo believed, at fifteen, that she had no Chinese whatsoever below her skin. If anything, she perceives herself as Caucasian; even her Caucasian friends agreed that she "was as Chinese as they were." Her mother, however, told her differently, "It's in your blood, waiting to be let go." This terrified Jing-Mei, making her believe that it would cause her to suddenly change, "I saw myself transforming like a werewolf." Jing-Mei Woo finally realizes that she has never really known what it means to be Chinese because she was born and has lived in America all her life. After her mother's death, Jing-Mei discovers that she has two twin sisters living in China who have been searching for their mother and that s...
From the beginning when she went to go get her hair cut, Jing-Mei felt like maybe she could be this prodigy her mother wanted her to be but over time you see her internal conflict grows. She feels like this isn’t true anymore you see this when she says, “If you don’t hurry up and get me out of here, I’m disappearing for good.” (Tan) Through the process Jing-Mei realized the task presented to her where not what she wanted to do and that is when she started to revel and finally exploded. Which lead to her external conflict with her mother when we tells her that, “I wish I’d never been born! I wish I were dead! Like
This story is about a young Lady that lives in California with her mother and Father. She
The hardest problem communicating emerges between Suyuan and Jing-Mei. Suyuan is a very strong woman who lost everything she ever had in China: "her mother and father, her family home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls" (141). Yet she finds the strength to move on and still retains her traditional values. She remarries and has Jing-Mei and creates a new life for herself in America. She is the one who brings together three other women to form the Joy Luck Club. The rift is the greatest between Suyuan and June. Suyuan tries to force her daughter to be everything she could ever be. She sees the opportunities that America has to offer, and does not want to see her daughter throw those opportunities away. She wants the best for her daughter, and does not want Jing-Mei to ever let go of something she wants because it is too hard to achieve. "America is where all my mother's hopes lay. . .There were so many ways for ...
Jing-mei’s independence soon followed her skepticism and realization of the ordinary, which stemmed from her hatred of performing tests, and the raised hopes and disappointment that subsequently ensued (Tan 241). When her mother demanded that only an obedient daughter could live in their house, Jing-mei did everything in her power to follow her own mind (Tan 247). As a first act of independence, Jing-mei began to perform lazily and inadequately on her mother’s tests. With her growing defiance, she decided to test her mother’s limits by playing a game to see how long it took before her mother gradually gave up, which did not take long. As a further act of independence, Jing-mei purposefully played the wrong notes at piano practice because she “was so determined not to try, not to be anybody different” (Tan 244). Jing-mei’s independence appears to be a plea with her mother, wondering why she wants her to change. Again, her “pleading child” characteristics pop
At the novels’ end, Jing- Mei’s acceptance of the importance of family and her Chinese heritage represents the acceptance of the plurality of values. An-Mei’s mother is evidence of this. For example, when An-Mei details her Grandmothers treatment of her mother, it is clear that cultural values have prevented her from achieving full autonomy and thus a full expression of universal human rights. When An-Mei’s mother becomes a concubine following her husband’s death, she disgraces her family. An-Mei’s grandmother disowns her daughter because of the shame this brings to her family.
The theme that comes to mind for me when I read this story is conflicting values. While growing up it was an important value to Jing-mei to be accepted for the daughter that she was. Unlike the value of her mother which was to not only become the best you can be but a prodigy, someone famous. In the way that Jing-mei's mother pushes so hard for her to become something bigger than she was it seems that Jing-mei tried her hardest not to.
In her short story "Two Kinds," Amy Tan utilizes the daughter's point of view to share a mother's attempts to control her daughter's hopes and dreams, providing a further understanding of how their relationship sours. The daughter has grown into a young woman and is telling the story of her coming of age in a family that had emigrated from China. In particular, she tells that her mother's attempted parental guidance was dominated by foolish hopes and dreams. This double perspective allows both the naivety of a young girl trying to identify herself and the hindsight and judgment of a mature woman.
I read this story a few times, to truly grasp an understanding of what the main conflict presented—as the prompt mentioned. I could choose multiple main points depending on how I interpreted the story. Initially I wanted to state that the main conflict I found was on how the half sisters of Jing-Mei would find out about their mother’s recent death in conjunction with the meeting of Jing-Mei for the first time. Each time I read the passage, I followed a different issue that I could assume to be the ‘conflict’ but slowly begin to realize that each conflict I was finding was only further developing what I believe to be the true conflict: Jing-Mei was unsure of her identity. Through various parts of the story, Jing-Mei references who she is in