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Individualism vs collectivism in society
Family dynamics and their effects
Individualism vs collectivism in society
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Consider this question: Is it better to follow your dreams, or to forfeit your dreams for the needs and wants of others? The Boat by Alistair MacLeod and The Two Kind by Amy Tan are two contrasting stories where the protagonists are confronted by the same question. However, the stories become disparate as Jing-Mei from The Two Kind chooses to rebel against her mother’s reign to turn her into a prodigy while the father from The Boat sacrifices his dream of attending university for the sake of what the mother wanted. Throughout this essay, it will analyze both stories to prove that it is not necessary to sacrifice your dreams for the needs of others for following your dreams will lead to more happiness than not following your dreams. Jing-Mei …show more content…
is confronted by her mother’s dream of having a child prodigy and undergoes through multiple tests by her mother to find her hidden talent. However, Jing-Mei’s epiphany occurs when she feels like a failure child when she is unsuccessful in pleasing her mother by developing a unique talent. Crying, she thinks to herself “I won't let her change me, I promised myself. I won't be what I'm not” (PG 2). This becomes the turning point where Jing-Mei refuses to submit to her mother’s demand; instead she follows her own path of who she wants to be. The author also uses the piano music as a representation of Jing-Mei’s life. The first piano piece “The Pleading Child” depicts the early portion of her life where she beseeches her mother to stop trying to change her, and accept her for who she is. It was never her will to become a child prodigy but her mother’s. After her mother stops trying to impose her dreams of having a child prodigy onto Jing-Mei, that is when Jing-Mei is able to accept herself as whom she is. This portion of her life is represented the second half of the song “Perfectly Content” as she can finally be happy about herself. Thus, Jing-Mei’s childhood and the author’s symbolic use of the piano music demonstrate that it is not always the correct decision to self-sacrifice for others. In The Two Kind, the protagonist had to oppose her mother’s dream in order for her to be happy. It was never the father’s intention to become a fisherman.
It was through the wrath of the mother who ridiculed the father and her daughters for reading. But despite the father’s desire to attend university and his resentment of the sea, he abandons his dream and becomes a fisherman in order to satisfy his wife’s hate against education and her love for the sea. When the narrator realizes the motive that drives the father to become a fisherman he realizes “then there came into my heart a very great love for my father and I thought it was very much braver to spend a life doing what you really do not want rather than selfishly following forever your own dreams and inclinations” (pg 10). For the rest of the father’s life, if he is not out fishing, he retreats into his room and reads books all day. The boat that the father fishes from symbolises the will of the wife where the father has slaved throughout his life. Ultimately by conforming to the mother’s demands, the father dies during a tragic storm while he is out fishing. Hence, it eventually cost the father his life trying to satisfy his wife. The father was unable to achieve his goals and lived the rest of his life in misery. In this scenario, by following the dreams of his wife, it led the father a life of unhappiness, and eventually led to his death. Therefore, self-sacrifice does not always lead to happiness but also a life of
hardship. In both The Boat and The Two Sides, the protagonists are faced with the dilemma of whether to follow their dreams and disregard other’s dream, or to forfeit their dreams for others. Jing-Mei from The Two Sides chose to resist against her mother’s ambition to turn her into a child prodigy. By the end, Jung-Mei’s self confidence that was once deteriorated because of her mother’s ambition was able to recovery after she decided to rebel against her. The father from The Boat decided to forfeit his dreams to satisfy his wife. In the end, it was doing what the wife wanted that led to the father’s death. Therefore it is evident that if you follow other people’s dream you will live a life of misery and the only way to be happy is if you are able to strive to achieve your own goals.
“The Boat”, narrated by a Mid-western university professor, Alistar MacLeod, is a short story concerning a family and their different perspectives on freedom vs. tradition. The mother pushes the son to embrace more of a traditional lifestyle by taking over the fathers fishing business, while on the other hand the father pushes the son to live more autonomously in an unconstrained manner. “The Boat” focuses on the father and how his personality influences the son’s choice on how to live and how to make decisions that will ultimately affect his life. In Alistair MacLeod’s, “The Boat”, MacLeod suggest that although dreams and desires give people purpose, the nobility of accepting a life of discontentment out weighs the selfishness of following ones own true desires. In the story, the father is obligated to provide for his family as well as to continue the fishing tradition that was inherited from his own father. The mother emphasizes the boat and it’s significance when she consistently asked the father “ How did things go in the boat today” since tradition was paramount to the mother. H...
In “The Boat” by Alistair MacLeod, the mother shows the importance of tradition to her, which has been cemented in her since youth. Throughout the piece, the reader realizes that the mother comes from a large traditional family of fisherman, which in effect the mother’s most defining characteristic was that she “was of the sea, as were all her people, and her horizons were the very literal ones she scanned with her dark and fearless eyes”. Tradition and her inherited family values shaped her personality that was shown throughout the piece, such as her diligence during her husband’s fishing excursions to her stubbornness throughout the family’s hardships. In a sense, a large part of her identity came directly from her traditions, which she felt
Nearly everyone has a dream in life that they desperately want to accomplish. Without these dreams people wouldn’t strive to accomplish what makes them happy. Sometimes happiness might be hard to reach because of obstacles faced in life. The obstacles which one faces and how they can overcome them are remarked in Anne Lauren’s Carter short story “Leaving the Iron Lung”. In order for the author to show that one must overcome faced obstacles to pursue their dreams, she uses the protagonist transformation, contrasting characters and settings.
This passage defines the character of the narrators’ father as an intelligent man who wants a better life for his children, as well as establishes the narrators’ mothers’ stubbornness and strong opposition to change as key elements of the plot.
The son is somewhat imprisoned as well. He struggles throughout the story to choose what he wants to do in life, either go to school or stay at home and help his father with fishing. This is a difficult decision for him as he is pulled in different directions as his mother wants him to stay, and his father told him to go back to school. At the beginning of the story the readers realize that the narrator works at a university. This displays that the narrator, or son, chose to go down the path of education after his father died. He feels as though he owes it to his father to live his dreams. Another part to this story is the mother’s relationship with her husband and children. It is clear that she strongly is against anyone doing something other than fishing with their lives. Why is it that she strongly dislikes anyone going against fishing, while her husband is the total opposite? Her husband is fisherman, whose desire is education, but the mother can’t stand anyone wasting time on useless books. I feel as though this may be because the mother frowns upon what her husband loves, and she is upset that he has to escape the life he lives with her and their children, using books.
...He is still anchored to his past and transmits the message that one makes their own choices and should be satisfied with their lives. Moreover, the story shows that one should not be extremely rigid and refuse to change their beliefs and that people should be willing to adapt to new customs in order to prevent isolation. Lastly, reader is able to understand that sacrifice is an important part of life and that nothing can be achieved without it. Boats are often used as symbols to represent a journey through life, and like a captain of a boat which is setting sail, the narrator feels that his journey is only just beginning and realizes that everyone is in charge of their own life. Despite the wind that can sometimes blow feverishly and the waves that may slow the journey, the boat should not change its course and is ultimately responsible for completing its voyage.
Even though we believe there are so many happy things around us, these things are heartbreaking. The poems “Tips from My Father” by Carol Ann Davis, “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith, and “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop convey the sorrow of growing up, of sorrowful pretending, and even of life itself. The poem “Tips from My Father” depicts an episode of the life of a father and his son. The pain from the childhood, the betraying of a lover, countless secrets are settling during the period of life, which can absolutely not be shared and understood by others.
No Bricks and No Temples: Coping with Crisis in “The Open Boat” Stephen Crane’s story “The Open Boat” concerns four people who are trying to reach land after surviving a shipwreck off the Florida coast. During the course of the story, they face dangers that are real physical threats, but they also have to deal with trying to make sense of their situation. The characters in this story cope with their struggles in two ways: individually, they each imagine that Nature, or Fate, or God, is behind their experiences, which allows them to blame some outside force for their struggle, and together, they form a bond of friendship that helps them keep their spirits up. . In “Becoming Interpreters: The Importance of Tone in ‘The Open Boat,’” Gregory Schirmer states that “‘The Open Boat has at its center two quite different views of man: as a helpless and insignificant being adrift in a universe that is wholly indifferent to him and his ambitions, and on the other hand, as part of a brotherhood that binds man to man in the face of that indifferent universe” (222).
Each main character in Alistar MacLeod’s “The Boat” demonstrates stoic endurance against nature, life’s difficulties, or outright hostility. The Narrator of the story is a grown up man who reflects back on his life from when his father was still alive. Moreover, the mother/wife is the central conflict of the story; she values her traditional ways in the aspect of education being useless and unimportant, and also does not want her family to live a life other than a life of the sea nor does she want her family meeting people from the outside world. However, the father/husband is the central character of the story, he did not quite agree with the same lifestyle as his wife; he was a fisherman who not in any way enjoyed the fishing lifestyle.
Carrier’s protagonist who is motivated by a feeling of regret at not having learned from his father before his death. Conversely, Salinas’ speaker is motivated by a desire to pay respect to his father while he is still alive. At the end of “A Secret Lost in the water”, Carrier’s protagonist “has forgotten his father’s knowledge” (Carrier 36) which means he fails to inherit his father’s “sense of piety” (Carrier 35) and loses the way to find water. On the contrary, Salinas’ speaker still has very strong feelings of affection for his father, notwithstanding his poor treatment of his father while he was alive. The speaker “’d gladly give his life for his father” (Salina 21) because although his father is a “worker and provider” (Salina 30) with “a sixth grade education”, he is a
In the beginning of the passage, Trumbo uses selection of detail to describe the environment and illustrate to be safe and comforting showing the son and father bonded. The setting is described to have enormous Pine in which they settle the tent with a fire in front, lakes around and needles of tree falling down. The two have visited the place several times and have always fished together “ Each summer they came to this pace was nine thousand feet high and covered with pine trees and dotted with lakes”(6-8).Heading to the same spot several times to have some father-son bonding shows the relationship of the two to be strong and be well connected. Fishing, let alone takes a lot of time and dedication to get a catch, with the son and father repeatedly going this shows them having a good relationship. Although, the passage tensify the setting rather than getting into details of the father and son, it can be shown that the son and the father have strong bond as the repeatedly come to the same spot to go fish together.
The father’s love for his son drives him to make sure he can ensure the survival of his son. This love for his son is seen when the father threatens to shoot and kill the man who threatens his son’s life. It is said in the book “For this barren wasteland, that they call a vacuum of infinite space, they have each other”. What this means is that they have each other and will do what they can do make sure they survive. In their journey, the Father never kills out of anger or for food. The father’s intentions are to keep his son safe. We see this when father saw “a man drawing a bow on them and he pushed the boy's head down and tried to cover him with his body”. (pg.362) The father uses his body as a human shield to protect the boy from any injury. This shows that he is willing to give up his life in order to protect boy. The Father only goes after the men who attacked his son. Even when the father is just steps away from death, he tells his son “eat my share of food”. Instead of keeping it for himself in hopes of regaining his strength, he offers it all to his son. He does this to insure the survival of the boy. Parents want the best life for their children. The Father proves his son is his everything and proves it by protecting him no matter what the circumstances
First, the old man receives outer success by earning the respect and appreciation of the boy and the other fishermen. The boy is speaking to the old man in his shack after the old man’s long journey, “You must get well fast for there is much that I can learn and you can teach me everything” (Hemmingway 126). The boy appreciates the fact that the old man spends time to teach him about fishing. He respects him a great deal for he knows that the old man is very wise and is a magnificent fisherman. The fellow fishermen also show respect towards the old man as they note the size of the fish after the old man returns home, “What a fish it was, there has never been such a fish” (123). The men admire the fact that the old man has caught the biggest fish that they have seen. Many fishermen resented Santiago at first, however their opinion changed once they realized what the old man has gone through. Being admired by others plays a major role in improving one’s morale.
In The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago, an old Cuban fisherman, pits his strength against forces he cannot control. We learn from Santiago's struggles how to face insurmountable odds with bravery and courage. Though we find an indifferent and hostile universe as Santiago's stage, his unwillingness to give in to these forces demonstrate a reverence for life's struggles. Santiago's struggle is for dignity and meaning in the face of insurmountable odds. His warrior-like spirit fights off the sharks full-well knowing the fate of his marlin. Santiago loses his marlin in the end, but his struggle to keep it represent a victory because of the dignity and heroism with which he carries out his mission. However, as Santiago acknowledges, he is almost sorry he caught the marlin because he knows the animal and he have a great deal in common as fellow beings in nature. However, he only caught the marlin "through trickery" (Hemingway 99). Santi...
We all have a dream, but the difference is how we realise our dream, how we obtain our dream, and how our dream changes us. This is evident in our learning of dreams and aspirations through the texts Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keys, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? by Lasse Hallström, and through my own studies of Million Dollar Baby by Clint Eastwood. These three highly acclaimed texts represent the same ideas on dreams and aspirations, which can be defined as hope, desire or the longing for a condition or achievement, but these texts express the same ideas differently, shaping our understanding of dreams and aspirations.