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Essay on if figurative language can be used to much
Essay on if figurative language can be used to much
Into the wild use of figurative language
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When people are introduced to a new environment they feel a need to adapt to the dominant culture. In “Fish Cheeks,” a biographical narrative by Amy Tan, Amy’s parents invite the minister and his son, Amy’s crush, Robert to join them for a Christmas Eve dinner along with Amy’s relatives. Throughout the story, Amy is conflicted between embracing her culture and distancing herself from it in order to fit in. Tan’s use of figurative language and specific details throughout the narrative portrays contrasting perspectives between Amy’s view of the dinner and the view of the adults.
While her parents were enthusiastic about the dinner, Amy was feeling apprehensive about the impression the dinner would leave on Robert. Amy’s attitude towards her culture
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is revealed through Tan’s use of metaphors and detailed descriptions of Robert’s actions. As her mother was preparing the menu for the dinner Amy describes her favorite food as “stacked wedges of rubbery white sponges” and “a slimy rock cod with bulging eyes”. Amy is so shameful and insecure about her culture that she is unable to recognize her favorite dishes. During the course of the story, Amy continuously glances at Robert who is “looking down at his plate with a reddened face.” His reactions mortify Amy to a greater extent, but Amy does not realize that Robert felt awkward at the dinner because he was unaccustomed to her culture. Robert’s actions at the dinner table indicate that he too feels awkward which results in Amy’s distress. Contrary to Amy and Roberts’ reactions at the dinner, the adults were enjoying the dinner and were open to each other’s cultural background which is revealed through specific language details.
The adults, although they felt awkward at first, respect each other’s culture. When Amy’s dad had finished his meal, he “belched loudly, thanking [her] mother for her fine cooking,” and although the minister was uncomfortable at first, he “managed to muster up a quiet burp.” The author’s use of imagery displays two people with contrasting cultures respecting each other’s heritage. Robert and Amy’s actions portray them as anxious and insecure, but the adults display a lively and jovial mood. During the dinner Amy’s relatives “murmured with pleasure” amongst themselves while Robert and his family are silent. Amy feels her relatives are being rowdy, but in reality they are expressing their happiness through conversations with one another. Tan’s use of the word “pleasure” implies that they are enjoying themselves and “murmured” has a connotation of being quiet, so Amy perceives the dinner as worse than it really is. Amy’s mother senses Amy’s unease, and knowingly tells her she understands that Amy “wants to be the same as American girls on the outside, but inside you must always be Chinese.” Tan’s use of dialogue expresses Amy’s struggle to find her identity and it displays her mother as
understanding. Through her use of figurative language and specific language details, Tan conveys different perspectives of the Christmas Eve dinner. The story expresses Amy’s internal struggle between maintaining her own identity and coping with the stress to blend in with the dominant culture such as Robert’s.
The title of the short story, “Four Directions” is symbolic for Waverly’s inner misconceptions. As she goes about her life, she is pulled in different ways by her past and her present. She is torn between her Chinese heritage and her American life. She never thought that instead of being pulled in four directions, she could take all of her differences and combine them. In the end she realizes this with the help of her mother. “The three of us, leaving our differences behind...moving West to reach East” (184), thought Waverly. Her whole life she misconceived her mother’s intentions. Lindo never wanted Waverly to solely focus on her Chinese heritage, but rather combine it with her new American ways. The idea of being pulled in four
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.
In “Fish Cheeks,” Amy’s mom is teaching her to embrace who she is, even if she is different. In the story the mother tells Amy, “You must be proud you are different. Your only shame is to have shame.” It is important to be proud of your culture because, it's good to be different. Diversity is what makes America an amazing place. America is commonly referred to as the “melting pot,” joining different cultures and religions together. When Amy’s mom talks about being shameful of your culture, she is trying to tell Amy that you have to be confident in who you are. In the story “Taco Head,” Coach Clarke tells Sofia to be confident in her tacos and her culture. At the time Sofia is being bullied by kids in her grade. The tacos really symbolize Sofia’s culture. In the story. Coach Clarke is trying to teach Sofia to be proud of her culture (the tacos). In the story it says, “...eat your tacos proudly, and right in the middle of the cafeteria.” Both of these stories teach a lesson to embrace who you
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.
Tatiana de Rosnay used different literary tools to assist her writing in order to deepen the story, including figurative language, dramatic irony, and foreshadowing. The use of figurative language helps to clarify a description in order to place an image in the mind of the reader. Similes are the main type of figurative language used throughout Sarah’s Key, allowing the reader to see what is happening. Many images conjured up make comparisons as a child would make them, as much of the story concerns the innocence of a child, such as “[t]he oversized radiators were black with dirt, as scaly as a reptile” (Rosnay 10) and “[t]he bathtub has claws” (Rosnay 11). Other descriptions compare Sarah, and Zoe, to a puppy, a symbol of innocence, as children are known to be
Christmas Eve dinner came about and it became evident that her family had just about taken mixed race to another level. She had a cousin, Rebecca, that was married with a child and their small family was white and Jewish (Senna 296). Danzy’s sister had three children that were half Pakistani and they lived in England (Senna 296). Her brother was married to a Chinese woman and they had a young daughter together (Senna 296.) Carla Latty, Anna’s orphaned daughter, was cohabitating with an Indian woman. Senna discovered that at this family dinner, some of them are blood related and are just meeting for the first time. She recognizes the history that they all share in some shape, form, or fashion. Yet, it is not a day of rainbows and lollipops. Danzy and her sister have hurt each other and there is tension. Her brother and his wife hide their infant in the bedroom upset that the other children present had infected their baby. Her cousin’s daughter has declared herself as a lesbian at the age of eleven. Despite all of the obstacles and hurdles her family has faced, Danzy considers the Christmas Eve dinner “a victory” (Senna 301). Danzy’s brother says that “Anybody who finds him offensive can get the […] out” about a gift given to his child (Senna 300). That was his way of approving the
Amy Tan, in ?Mother Tongue,? Does an excellent job at fully explaining her self through many different ways. It?s not hard to see the compassion and love she has for her mother and for her work. I do feel that her mother could have improved the situation of parents and children switching rolls, but she did the best she could, especially given the circumstances she was under. All in all, Amy just really wanted to be respected by her critics and given the chance to prove who she is. Her time came, and she successfully accomplished her goals. The only person who really means something to her is her mother, and her mother?s reaction to her first finished work will always stay with her, ?so easy to read? (39).
Tan makes an appeal to emotion with the connections she describes. A connection between a mother and daughter that is wrought with emotion is as relatable as humaneness is to a human. There is a soft declaration to be found in Tan’s statement, “I knew I had succeeded where it counted when my mother finished reading my book and gave me her verdict: “So easy to read.” Tan gains trust by appealing to emotion with something as understandable as the loving and more often than not tension riddled connection between a mother and her daughter. Tan incorporates the intimacy of the “broken” language in correlation to her husband with these words, “It has become our language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk, the language I grew up with” (Tan 1). Under the assumption that Louis DeMattei (Tan’s husband) has no prior history with the Chinese Language Tan makes an important point of the use of the “broken” language she learned from her mother. Demattei doesn’t inquire or correct Tan when she switches between the English she acquired from the vast expanses of English literature and the English she acquired from her mother. Tan says, “he even uses it with me,” there is an implied level of comfort within the relationship she has with her husband. Tan shares what is viewed as “broken” and in need of fixing with Demattei and he reciprocates, leaving them
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
Amy Tan’s “Fish Cheeks” describes Tan’s upbringing as a Chinese-American caught in between two cultures. In “Fish Cheeks” Tan’s crush Robert and his family were invited to Tan’s house for Christmas, Amy was embarrassed of Robert’s impression of her Chinese relatives, cuisine, and culture (Tan 110). Tan’s situation is not uncommon as millions of first generation Americans encounter similar situations while living within two cultures. Albeit the extreme embarrassment Tan endured throughout the encounter, she contends that her mother taught her a valuable lesson in appreciating her Chinese culture (111). Ultimately, Tan's purpose was to implore first generation Americans to embrace both of their cultures, in spite of its unique traditions (Tan
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.
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.
Tan was born to a pair of Chinese immigrants. Her mother understood English extremely well, but the English she spoke was “broken.”(36) Many people not familiar with her way of speaking found it very difficult to understand her. As a result of this, Tan would have to pretend to be her mother, and she called people up to yell at them while her mother stood behind her and prompted her. This caused Tan to be ashamed of her mother throughout her youth, but as she grew, she realized that the language she shares with her mother is a “language of intimacy” (36) that she even uses when speaking with her husband.
Allie was emotionally devastated and cried herself to sleep for a month until eventually she moved on with her life and found happiness again. Noah and Allie are both from different social backgrounds, a higher class style of life and a lower class style, yet they both seem to be able to adapt to one another’s social gatherings without a problem. Noah knows the possibilities of cultural conflicts could arise with the different cultural lifestyles perceiving things in different ways
This little short story is about a fourteen years old Chinese girl named Amy. Who she had a crush on the minister son named Robert. After she found out that her parents invited the minister family on charismas eve diner, Amy was worried that Robert wouldn’t like her because of her family and tradition. Right from the start Robert seem that didn’t like how her parent acting. Amy family was licking chopsticks and reaching to the food instead of passing it. The main thing that Amy was embarrassed the most was the food. Her parents made chinses food instead of American food in charismas eve. Robert seemed that he didn’t like the food and the way her parent acted in diner. Once they left, Amy mother knew that Amy wasn’t happy. Her mom said “You