Fish Cheeks By Amy Tan Coming Of Age

Alice Hoffman, a novelist, once wrote this quote about coming of age, “She didn't like being twelve. It felt like someplace between who she'd been and who she was about to be. It felt like no place at all.” Coming of Age is a young, foolish, self-absorbed, character’s transformation into a selfless, mature individual. The main character often comes of age after facing difficult hardships and adversities. They all mature and realize valuable life lessons along the way. Sometimes, after a character comes of age, they often have a change of heart. The adversities that are against them alter their perspective of the world around them. Prior to the character’s coming of age experiences, the character strives to be an independent and mature adult.

They come of age.
In “Fish Cheeks,” Amy Tan was freaking out about her family’s Christmas dinner.

Everything about in the dinner, in her opinion, was bland, boring, and appaling in comparison to traditional American Christmas dinners. Even worse, her crush, Robert, the minister’s son, would be coming to her Chinese family’s Christmas dinner with his family. An American boy eating a traditional Chinese dinner would be disastrous! During the dinner, she loathed “her noisy Chinese relatives who lacked proper American manners.” She described her favorite Chinese food in detail as the most disgusting of foods. The difficult Christmas dinner made Amy internally shame her Chinese heritage. This shame she felt upon her Chinese heritage resembled “someplace between” who she was about to become and the shameful girl she once

was.
In Twelve Years of Age”, Snow White began developing acne. Once the first festering bump of acne popped up, then the full storm came. Her face broke out in miniscule yellow bumps, signaling the beginning of adolescence and the maturing of her physical features. The lingering symptoms of acne, extra-oily hair, hairy legs, and body odor symbolize the middle of adolescence- a place between her childhood body and fully-developed adult body.
The child in this painting looks very disturbed and unraveled. If you look carefully at his surroundings, he almost seems as if he is curled up in a ball so that he does not make any contact with the items. Secondly, the boy is also shown hugging the pillow showing fear which also shows that obviously is not enjoying his life at this time. Lastly, the boy is nostalgic since he does not wish to get rid of the items around him. He wishes that he could go back to the time when he took pleasure in these items and felt joy with them. He does not enjoy being twelve because he is fearful, uncomfortable, and nostalgic.
Fish Cheeks, Snow White’s Acne, and the painting Growing Up, all through one perspective display a space between childhood and adulthood.

Amy Tan in “Fish Cheeks” is torn between who she wants to be on the outside, and who she truly is inside. Snow White in “Snow White’s Acne” is noticeably self-conscious about her breakouts of acne and other lingering symptoms of adolescence. She feels spiteful and even more self-conscious around her gorgeous mom. The boy in the painting Growing Up is clearly rejecting his childhood toys. Therefore, he is obviously stating that he’s officially done with his childhood. However, he is seen to be hugging his pillow with a quite pensive expression on his face. This expression and the action of hugging his pillow probably symbolizes his unwillingness to grow up and fully mature into adulthood. Alice Hoffman is an experienced Coming Of Age author whose quote perfectly described the situations that the main characters from Fish Cheeks, Snow White’s Acne, and the painting Growing Up. Although each story portrayed completely different scenarios, Alice Hoffman accurately portrayed all of them with a coming of age outline with one quote. Alice Hoffman has utterly written an obvious quote that shows all perspectives of both modern and old coming of age topics that also could show them from different ethnicities too. Her quote completely explained all three stories without any flaw or

doubt.