Analyzing Amy Tan's 'Fish Cheeks'

550 Words2 Pages

Why is some stories so confusing? That’s the question I used to always ask myself before I started looking at the author's style. Not only does the author's style help you understand stories more, but it helps you use more techniques in your writing and have a wider variety of vocab. “ Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan is one of those poems that the author's style help you understand the poem better and help make your writing style better. “Fish Cheeks” is about a girl who is embarrassed about her culture and wants to be he same as all of the other girls. “ Fish Cheeks” By Amy Tan uses Imagery and personification to convey how Amy is embarrassed about her culture. The author uses personification and imagery to illustrate how disgusted Amy was of her favorite …show more content…

In the second paragraph Amy Tan uses personification and Imagery “ A slimy rock cod with bulging eyes that pleaded not to be thrown into a pan of hot oil.” and “ A bowl soaking dried fungus back to life.” Amy is talking about how a dead fish pleaded not to be thrown into a frying pan and that a bowl of food looks like dried fungus bubbling.The quote “ A slimy rock cod with bulging eyes that pleaded not to be thrown into a pan of hot oil.” uses a word that describes a human (pleaded) to show how the cod didn’t want to be throw into the pan of hot oil. The second quote “ A bowl soaking dried fungus back to life.” uses dried fungus to show how weird and disgusting Amy thought of her favorite foods. The author uses to the term, “back to life” paint a picture of what the dried fungus looked like. The personification show how Amy is embarrassed of her favorite foods because her crush the minister's son thought it was disgusting so Amy did as well. This contributes to the overall meaning and tone of the story that Amy was embarrassed of her culture and wanted to be the same as the other

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Suffering Mirrored By Nikky Finny

    1261 Words  | 3 Pages

    In fact, the fish story has become a metaphor reflecting the technique used by Finney for expressing the difficult thing beautifully, to compress a poem choosing what should be kept in a poem and what should be thrown away (Finney, “Interview with: Nikky Finney”), to express whatever difficult feelings she has without much noise or rage. Finney sees activism as a basic part of her work.

    Read More

  • The Use Of Imagery In Leyvik Yehoash's 'Lynching'

    734 Words  | 2 Pages

    Authors use many different types of imagery in order to better portray their point of view to a reader. This imagery can depict many different things and often enhances the reader’s ability to picture what is occurring in a literary work, and therefore is more able to connect to the writing. An example of imagery used to enhance the quality of a story can be found in Leyvik Yehoash’s poem “Lynching.” In this poem, the imagery that repeatably appears is related to the body of the person who was lynched, and the various ways to describe different parts of his person. The repetition of these description serves as a textual echo, and the variation in description over the course of the poem helps to portray the events that occurred and their importance from the author to the reader. The repeated anatomic imagery and vivid description of various body parts is a textual echo used by Leyvik Yehoash and helps make his poem more powerful and effective for the reader and expand on its message about the hardship for African Americans living

    Read More

  • Figurative Language In Four Directions By Amy Tan

    1008 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this short, but charming story, Amy Tan uses imagery to bring the story to life. With figurative language, the reader is immersed into the Chinese culture and can better relate to the characters. Tan main use of imagery is to better explain each character. Often instead of a simple explanation, Tan uses metaphors, similes, or hyperboles to describe the person, this way they are more relatable and their feelings better understood.

    Read More

  • The Standover Man Sparknotes

    917 Words  | 2 Pages

    “ The horizon was the color of milk. Cold and fresh. Poured out among the bodies” (Zusak 175). The device is used in the evidence of the quote by using descriptives words that create a mental image. The text gives the reader that opportunity to use their senses when reading the story. “Somehow, between the sadness and loss, Max Vandenburg, who was now a teenager with hard hands, blackened eyes, and a sore tooth, was also a little disappointed” (Zusak 188). This quote demonstrates how the author uses descriptive words to create a mental image which gives the text more of an appeal to the reader's sense such as vision. “She could see his face now, in the tired light. His mouth was open and his skin was the color of eggshells. Whisker coated his jaw and chin, and his ears were hard and flat. He had a small but misshapen nose” (Zusak 201). The quotes allows the reader to visualize what the characters facial features looked like through the use of descriptive words. Imagery helps bring the story to life and to make the text more exciting. The reader's senses can be used to determine the observations that the author is making about its characters. The literary device changes the text by letting the reader interact with the text by using their observation skills. The author is using imagery by creating images that engages the reader to know exactly what's going on in the story which allows them to

    Read More

  • Figurative Language In Gary Soto's 'Buried Onions'

    562 Words  | 2 Pages

    Out all of the figurative language used in the book, I chose three. The first one I used is found on page 2, “The Sun was climbing over the trees of city college and soon the black asphalt would shimmer with vapers.” This figurative language is personification because it is giving human-like traits to the sun. The meaning of quote is that the sun represents hope or a new day and the vapors of the onions represents the dreadful things that might happen; so basically, a hope versus evil scenario. It is significant to the book because the city is apparently cursed with onions that leaves vapor wherever a bad situation occurred. The whole hope vs evil is what really makes the book come to alive to. Next we will talk about the other figurative

    Read More

  • Fish Cheeks Rhetorical Analysis Essay

    457 Words  | 1 Pages

    The transition from childhood to adulthood can be challenging. There are many things to learn and let go. Sometime teenagers can dramatize certain events to make themselves seem defenseless. Amy Tan, Chinese-American author, makes her Chinese Christmas seem insufferable. In Tan’s passage “Fish Cheeks”, Tan uses diction and details to exemplify the indignity caused by her Chinese culture.

    Read More

  • Christmas Dinner In Fish Cheeks, By Amy Tan

    509 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the story, “Fish Cheeks,” by Amy Tan, the author speaks of her “worst” Christmas dinner when her family invited Amy’s crush and his family for christmas dinner. Overall, the story was actually telling of her best Christmas dinner ever where her parents taught her to respect her culture and not be afraid to be who she was. The author and narrator, Amy Tan, used tone to convey this message to the audience in a few different ways in the story.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Mary Pipher's Writing To Connect

    846 Words  | 2 Pages

    Piper’s use of imagery in this way gives the opportunity for the reader to experience “first hand” the power of words, and inspires the reader to be free from the fear of writing.

    Read More

  • The Blue Estuaries Personification

    718 Words  | 2 Pages

    Personification is presented by the author as the only explanation for the narrator’s consumption. “The Blue Estuaries” begins to stir the narrator’s own poems (line 24) until she bores down on the page once more, coming back into what is perceived by the reader as a much more clear state of mind. Then, the narrator claims to have “lost her doubts” for a moment (line 34). This was a turning point in the narrator’s tone- signalling a shift in her thoughts, and was a strikingly out of place claim- especially coming from somebody so preoccupied- making the reader wonder what she had thought about for a moment. The narrator then begins to read once more (Line

    Read More

  • Comparing Girl by Jamaica Kincaid and A&P by John Updike

    1222 Words  | 3 Pages

    Within every story or poem, there is always an interpretation made by the reader, whether right or wrong. In doing so, one must thoughtfully analyze all aspects of the story in order to make the most accurate assessment based on the literary elements the author has used. Compared and contrasted within the two short stories, “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, and John Updike’s “A&P,” the literary elements character and theme are made evident. These two elements are prominent in each of the differing stories yet similarities are found through each by studying the elements. The girls’ innocence and naivety as characters act as passages to show something superior, oppression in society shown towards women that is not equally shown towards men.

    Read More

  • Significant Identity In Short Story

    856 Words  | 2 Pages

    First, the story ¨Fish Cheeks¨ shows a story of how a girl named Amy “finds herself” through a holiday dinner. Amy has a crush on Robert, a 14 year old

    Read More

  • Sorrow Of Sorrow

    996 Words  | 2 Pages

    The poet seems to share the same pain with the fish, observing the scene and enjoying the detail just like enjoying an artwork. The poet lets the fish go because she is totally touched by the process between life and death; she loves life but, meanwhile, is deeply hurt by the life. In the poem, the fish has no fear towards her; the desire to live is in the moving and tragic details when she faces the death.

    Read More

  • 'Broken Chain And Fish Cheeks'

    303 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the story, "Fish Cheeks" it talks about how Amy Tan's Chinese family invites an American boy's family over for dinner. Amy Tan wants to impress him and thinks that he wont like the food her mother made even though it is her favorite food. She can tell that he doesn't like the food and she is embarased. So, Amy wants to fit in.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Two Kinds by Amy Tan

    1425 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the story “Two Kinds”, the author, Amy Tan, intends to make reader think of the meaning behind the story. She doesn’t speak out as an analyzer to illustrate what is the real problem between her and her mother. Instead, she uses her own point of view as a narrator to state what she has experienced and what she feels in her mind all along the story. She has not judged what is right or wrong based on her opinion. Instead of giving instruction of how to solve a family issue, the author chooses to write a narrative diary containing her true feeling toward events during her childhood, which offers reader not only a clear account, but insight on how the narrator feels frustrated due to failing her mother’s expectations which leads to a large conflict between the narrator and her mother.

    Read More

  • Analysis of The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop

    976 Words  | 2 Pages

    A poem without any complications can force an author to say more with much less. Although that may sound quite cliché, it rings true when one examines “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop. Elizabeth’s Bishop’s poem is on an exceedingly straightforward topic about the act of catching a fish. However, her ability to utilize thematic elements such as figurative language, imagery and tone allows for “The Fish” to be about something greater. These three elements weave themselves together to create a work of art that goes beyond its simple subject.

    Read More

More about Analyzing Amy Tan's 'Fish Cheeks'

Open Document