Comparing Champion Of The World By Amy Tan And Maya Angelou

Amy Tan and Maya Angelou both wrote a short narration story about white Americans but from two different perspectives. One similarity between the two is that they are both younger aged children dealing with cultural judgments. In Maya Angelou’s writing she is proud and bragging about being an African American while in Amy Tan’s writing she is feeling ashamed and embarrassed that she won’t fit in because of her cultural beliefs.

In Maya Angelou’s writing, “Champion of the world” she uses narration to entertain and teach. While reading the short story, you may find yourself getting excited and interested in the fight that the African Americans are watching on television, which means that Maya used narration correctly in this situation. Not only is Angelou expressing how exciting it was to have an African American man, for once come out over top of a white man, but she is also teaching how big the rivalry between the two really was. Angelou was beyond enthused and proud to

be African American after Joe Louis had won his fight.
Unlike Angelou’s story, Amy Tan’s character was shamed of her culture and beliefs.

The narration that Tan uses is based on her family’s appearance, intentions, and culture. In fish cheeks, the teenage girl falls in love with the ministers white son. She was a Chinese girl and her family celebrated Christmas differently than a normal white family would. Knowingly of her daughters crush, the girl’s mother invites the minister’s family over to spend Christmas at their house. From here on out in, Tan uses narration to explain how she was feeling and to also draw an image of what her mom had prepared for Christmas dinner. Tan uses very descriptive writing to explain the emotions and images of what is occurring, it’s almost like you have a front row seat. At the end of her story, the mother explains how the girl can look like an American girl on the outside but she will always be Chinese on the inside and should never be ashamed of it. After that, Tan’s character had a better perspective on her

culture.
The two essays both are important and effective in different ways but I believe that Amy Tan’s “Fish Cheeks” explained more of a realistic life lesson than Maya Angelou’s “Champion of the World”. Believe it or not, more people are ashamed and brought down because of their cultural differences and become self-conscious. But with little reminders that no one person’s beliefs is technically “right” always helps. Everybody is different and should never be judged on their cultural differences because ethnicity and religion does not make someone better than another person, their attitude and personality is what does.