The Theme of Girl Power in Joy Luck Club and Taste of Honey
Joy Luck Club and Taste of Honey
Women’s rights is an issue of serious interest in much of today’s
literature. As more women take the pen in hand more and more female
characters take center stage in the stories they write. The newest
term for this focus on the powerful heroine is called “Girl Power” and
this strength of persona can be seen in two pieces of literature in
particular. The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, and A Taste of Honey, by
Shelagh Delaney.
In the Joy Luck Club Amy Tan write about the lives of four mother’s
from China who pass their lives’ wisdom down to their daughters who
are growing up on the foreign shores of California, USA. Each of
these women have a story to tell about growing up in the patriarchal
society of china, how they overcame the stifling environment they grew
up in and how they survived and escaped to the “new world” as it
were.
The story of An Mei, Waverly Jong’s mother, is an excellent example of
how women can take control of the situations that are forced upon them
and make their lives better. In the novel An Mei is sold into a
marriage at the age of four. At fifteen, on her wedding day she
discovers she has been married to 13 year old boy, who no more wants
to be a husband than he does a father. An Mei is forced to sleep on
the floor and treated to the derisive comments and punishments of her
mother in law when she fails to produce a child. However, over
hearing a house servant who found herself pregnant, she devises a plan
to escape her ill-fated life and out-trick her lying child-groom. She
uses the superstitions of the traditional Chinese and her clever wit
to win a ticket out of the loveless marriage and back to Shanghai
with her family. This tale, re-told by An Mei, shows how woman, even
in dire situations, can take charge of their lives and make the most
of what they have.
Rose Hsu Jordan is another one of Tan’s Characters that really takes
charge of her life just when it seems she would be swallowed whole by
a man’s world. In this present day tale, a young woman find herself
married to man whose opinions she has grown to value above her own.
She has forgotten how to value herself and fallen prey to the pitfall
of pleasing her husband before taking care of her own needs.
When discussing the child’s sleep pattern with his father, it is reported that they start out the night with the child going his to bed with his father. He indicated that Stuart doesn’t mind the child sleeping with him. He indicated that his son doesn’t have much time with the child. The paternal grandfather stated that Stuart does encourage the child to sleep by himself.
He is explaining how a wife’s life is that of her husband. No matter what condition or temperament her husband comes home in, she must tend to his every need no questions asked. This is a very unfair way for women to live their lives seeing as she has hardly anything in her life that is her own.
T.C. Boyle uses immorality as a central idea to tell the story. Jeremy tells China to end her pregnancy: ‘“You have to get rid of it…go to a clinic’, he told her” (). Here one sees that Jeremy is not a responsible person.
Dakota Hoffman Changes and Choices Mrs. Srittmatter. Have you ever felt like you were socially awkward? Well in the book of the perks of being a wallflower a kid named Charlie has a hard time knowing what to do to socialize, in the movie Mean Girls a girl named Katy comes from Africa and also doesn’t know what to do socially, so they both have similar social skills, both causing them to be social outcasts. In the book Charlie starts his freshman year out friendless and he is not really sure on what he is to do to make a friend. But he meets Sam and Patrick and just goes with them because he feels comfortable around them.
Our mothers have played very valuable roles in making us who a we are and what we have become of ourselves. They have been the shoulder we can lean on when there was no one else to turn to. They have been the ones we can count on when there was no one else. They have been the ones who love of us for who we are and forgive us when no one else wouldn’t. In Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds,” the character Jing-mei experiences being raised by a mother who has overwhelming expectations for her daughter, causes Jing-mei to struggle with who she wants to be. “Only two kind of daughters,” “Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!”(476). When a mother pushes her daughter to hard the daughter rebels, but realizes in the end that their mothers only wanted the best for them and had their best interest at heart.
Zhu Ying was a member of the military’s theatre troupe, and about to be a member of the party, until she refused to sleep with party members. After that, they transferred and then imprisoned her. While her role in the military could have made Zhu Ying an androgynous figure, an emblem of communist gender equality, the party’s expectation that she have sex with party members makes her a sexual object, which is its own form of feminization. Zhu Ying is allowed to retain her femininity only if she consents to being a sexual object; when she does not, she is sent to be a laborer, and later imprisoned. Moreover, by being separated from her boyfriend, her chance at domestic happiness is taken away. After imprisonment, she has no opportunity to fill the traditional female role of marriage and children (which she may or may not have desired). Thus, the party halts the “natural” order of marriage and
and a woman to produce a child and to show that they belong to one
over his wife as he refers to her as a belonging; it also shows that
Mean Girls tells the story of Cady Heron’s transition from 12 years of home school in Africa to public high school in the United States when her mother gets offered tenure at a nearby college. Upon her arrival, Cady bonds with Janice and Damian who are considered apart of the “out crowd”. Janice and Damian give Cady the scoop on all of the social cues and how to navigate her new territory. When she is invited to join the most popular clique in the school, “The Plastics” Cady is placed in the middle of revenge and is encouraged to invade the lives of the girls to steal their secrets and eventually uproot their lives. Although this movie is primarily focused on revenge (which can be correlated with coercion, the least ideal form of leadership)
An interpersonal element that is hugely represented in Mean Girls is culture, which is defined as the system of learned and shared symbols, language, values, and norms that distinguish one group of people from another. Cady Herron is forced to move from Africa to America, where society is extremely different. On her first day at an American public high school, Cady enters the lunchroom and notices a group of African American students sitting at a table together. Growing up around African people, she identifies with them and she assumes that they are her in-group, so she approaches them hoping that they will let her sit with them, but they are confused as to what she is doing. To them, she is part of the out-group because she is white. They do not identify with her, so one of the girls puts her purse in the empty seat next to her, communicating that Cady
How would one feel if ones significant other was constantly disobeying the relationship? In Irwin Shaw’s “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses”, he shows how important having a trustworthy and honest relationship is. This short story highlights the flaws in romantic relationships by demonstrating how one needs some type of relationship in life, how fragile a relationship can be, and how many take loved ones for granted.
In early America, women in the Paleolithic Era were looked upon as life's sustenance. They provided life by giving birth and were respected for that. They were valued greatly as well, and they were considered too delicate and worth too much to allow to do any type of manual labor. There was a great respect for the American women in this time period, and in China it was quite the opposite. In the story "The Lady Knight Errant," the subject of birthing children comes up. In China having an heir to carry on the name was a very important, and it was necessary for the men who wanted to be considered to be a man of honor and dignity. In order for Ku, who was an unmarried man, to have an heir, the lady knight errant chose to have a love affair with him, and he very much ap...
... to the husband. Yet the reader is presented with woman Wang, who ran away with another man from her husband, Jen. Some of the reasons of her departure could have been neglect from her husband, that she had bound feet and that she had no children. Her actions contradicted any moral wife at that time. After relentless pursuit of happiness woman Wang returned home, there she met her death. The Legal Code justified certain parameters of vengeance on behave of the husband toward his adulterous wife. Nevertheless, Jen was not allowed by the law to simply slaughter his wife. Moreover Jen accused an innocent Kao, for which Jen could have been sentenced to death. Were woman Wang's actions right is for the reader to decide.
“The Bridegroom” by Ha Jin, is a short story about a man struggling with homosexuality in modern day China. The narrator, Old Chang, is the non-biological father of a young woman named Beina. Old Change promised to take care of Beina after her father, a close family friend, passed away. Beina then gets married to a very handsome man named Huang Baowen. Baowen quickly becomes the focus of this story. The climax of this short story is Baowen being revealed as a homosexual. This short story highlights Jin’s theme of homosexuality and shows the internal and external struggles of both Baowen and Old Cheng, through first person narrative, setting, and emotional appeal.
Kingston uses the story of her aunt to show the gender roles in China. Women had to take and respect gender roles that they were given. Women roles they had to follow were getting married, obey men, be a mother, and provide food. Women had to get married. Kingston states, “When the family found a young man in the next village to be her husband…she would be the first wife, an advantage secure now” (623). This quote shows how women had to get married, which is a role women in China had to follow. Moreover, marriage is a very important step in women lives. The marriage of a couple in the village where Kingston’s aunt lived was very important because any thing an individual would do would affect the village and create social disorder. Men dominated women physically and mentally. In paragraph eighteen, “they both gav...