In the narrative, “New York Day Woman” by Edwidge Danticat, a woman spends the afternoon following her mother around New York City, learning new things about her in the process. One of the constant themes throughout the piece was the interpersonal conflict between people of varying cultures and generations. Values, morals, traditions, and life styles differ from one culture to another and this can result in communication difficulties for people of varying backgrounds. From the text, one can conclude that the author’s mother grew up in Haiti and still has relatives living there (pgs. 2-3); therefore, she is very firm in her native customs. Countries such as Haiti tend to live by traditional ideologies and old school ways of living. Compared …show more content…
to her daughter, Suzette, who has grown up in New York City, the mother still falls back into traditions and thought processes of those she grew up with in Haiti. Suzette is accustomed to very modern, American lifestyle, while her mother grew up in a low socio-economic country (pg. 2) before technology and progressive thinking. This then ties in with the generational gap between the two of them. Her mother has very different ideas for the type of person that Suzette should be. Her mother believes that she should give up her seat on the bus to older ladies or pregnant women (pg. 1), that she should want to have children (pg. 4), and that she is already perfect without needing to change. This particular theme is very important because of how it resonates with all cultures, past and present.
A cultural conflict in addition to a generational gap can extremely hinder a familial relationship such as that between Suzette and her mother. Understanding where their differences in viewpoints, experiences and morals spur from help the reader to understand why the author feels the need to follow her mother around the city for an extended period of time. Suzette doesn’t understand where her mother’s “crazy” views and actions come from. She also probably feels ashamed of her mother – ashamed of her culture, her appearance (pg. 2), her lack of assimilation to American society (pg. 1), and her lack of understanding towards her own daughter (pg. 3). This is why seeing her mother carry herself with such dignity and purpose surprises her. For probably the first time, she sees her mother in a completely new light and realizes that there is much more to her mother than she always thought. Viewing her in this new situation opens Suzette’s eyes to the way her mother actually lives life, not the way that Suzette has always assumed. By the end of the narrative, she understands that she shouldn’t be ashamed of her mother because her culture makes her who she is – someone who is very kind and
thoughtful. To completely understand all of the underlying meaning of the narrative, investigating each of the themes is crucial. The culture/ generation conflict is just one theme established though Suzette’s perceptions of her mother that aids the reader in understanding Suzette’s actions in the story.
In El Nahra, for example, the cultural ethos is family honor. All actions in the community are based on the strong family bonds that exist throughout. However, individualism drives the majority of America. Our actions seem to be a direct result of the cultural ethos. In that, lied much of the confusion between Bob, BJ and th...
Thru-out the centuries, regardless of race or age, there has been dilemmas that identify a family’s thru union. In “Hangzhou” (1925), author Lang Samantha Chang illustrates the story of a Japanese family whose mother is trapped in her believes. While Alice Walker in her story of “Everyday Use” (1944) presents the readers with an African American family whose dilemma is mainly rotating around Dee’s ego, the narrator’s daughter. Although differing ethnicity, both families commonly share the attachment of a legacy, a tradition and the adaptation to a new generation. In desperation of surviving as a united family there are changes that they must submit to.
For over centuries, society had established the societal standard of the women. This societal standard pictured the ideal American woman running the household and taking care of the children while her husband provided for the family. However, between 1770 and 1860, this societal standard began to tear at the seams. Throughout this time period, women began to search for a new ideal of American womanhood by questioning and breaking the barriers society had placed upon them.
Regretfully, though readers can see how Mama has had a difficult time in being a single mother and raising two daughters, Dee, the oldest daughter, refuses to acknowledge this. For she instead hold the misconception that heritage is simply material or rather artificial and does not lie in ones heart. However, from Mama’s narrations, readers are aware that this cultural tradition does lie within ones heart, especially those of Mama’s and Maggie’s, and that it is the pure foundation over any external definition.
Oftentimes the children of immigrants to the United States lose the sense of cultural background in which their parents had tried so desperately to instill within them. According to Walter Shear, “It is an unseen terror that runs through both the distinct social spectrum experienced by the mothers in China and the lack of such social definition in the daughters’ lives.” This “unseen terror” is portrayed in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club as four Chinese women and their American-born daughters struggle to understand one another’s culture and values. The second-generation women in The Joy Luck Club prove to lose their sense of Chinese values, becoming Americanized.
In conclusion, this book gave me a whole new view on life and how we can interact better with different people. The book emphasized that culture is key to understanding people. Sometimes it is hard to connect with others because they are indicated as different but in due time we can adjust. Every culture has their own traditions when it comes to what they eat, what to wear, dating, various ceremonies, holidays and more. Reading this book helped me become more accepting of who I am and where I come from.
Traditions control how one talks and interacts with others in one’s environment. In Bengali society, a strict code of conduct is upheld, with dishonor and isolation as a penalty for straying. Family honor is a central part to Bengali culture, and can determine both the financial and social standing of a family. Usha’s family poses no different, each member wearing the traditional dress of their home country, and Usha’s parents diligently imposing those values on their daughter. Those traditions, the very thing her [Usha] life revolved around, were holding her back from her new life as an American. Her mother in particular held those traditions above her. For example, when Aparna makes Usha wear the traditional attire called “shalwar kameez” to Pranab Kaku and Deborah’s Thanksgiving event. Usha feels isolated from Deborah’s family [Americans] due to this saying, “I was furious with my mother for making a scene before we left the house and forcing me to wear a shalwar kameez. I knew they [Deborah’s siblings] assumed, from my clothing, that I had more in common with the other Bengalis than with them” (Lahiri ...
The book starts off with Jeannette, a successful adult, taking a taxi to a nice party. When she looked out the window, she saw a woman digging through the garbage. The woman was her mother. Rather than calling out to her or saying hi, Jeannette slid down into the seat in fear that her mother would see her. When asking her mother what she should say when people ask about her family, Rose Mary Walls only told her, “Ju...
In the short story, "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, a Chinese mother and daughter are at odds with each other. The mother pushes her daughter to become a prodigy, while the daughter (like most children with immigrant parents) seeks to find herself in a world that demands her Americanization. This is the theme of the story, conflicting values. In a society that values individuality, the daughter sought to be an individual, while her mother demanded she do what was suggested. This is a conflict within itself. The daughter must deal with an internal and external conflict. Internally, she struggles to find herself. Externally, she struggles with the burden of failing to meet her mother’s expectations. Being a first-generation Asian American, I have faced the same issues that the daughter has been through in the story.
This was the illustration of this entire story. As the story goes it present a lot perspective and though of the mother and very little of the girl. More importantly, the story shows that the mother doesn’t really care about how the girl feels about her advice; it wasn’t a choice either she take her advice and become a good daughter and a good wife in the future or she will become known a “slut” who doesn’t follow her tradition. This story will make you wonder if the girl will ever become the perfect girl that her mother wants her to be or if she gets use to the American tradition and not be the perfect girl her mother ought her to
New York Day Women a story by Edwidge Danticat. It talks about a young woman’s thought as she follows her mother from a distance. She was kind of surprised to see her mother outside of Brooklyn, Her mother never really go anywhere but in Brooklyn. Her mother never seen the building where Suzette works and she is also talked in subway, where she is really afraid of it. Suzette was shocked and worried, then she followed her mother as she walk the streets. Her mother was doing everything opposite that she said to Suzette. In this story, it shows their love for each others. Suzette was using her entire lunch break time to follow her mother to see what’s happening, which is an example of love. In my connection, it won’t be the same as this story,
Some people say that the love between a mother and her daughter is forever; but what about the understanding? In the case of Waverly Jong and her mother in the story “Rules of the Game,” by Amy Tan, there is much miscommunication and misunderstanding. The story is set in mid-1950’s Chinatown and as the story opens, it is Christmas time. “Rules of the Game” is the telling of how a little girl learns to be more independent but falls into conflict with her mother along the way and becomes a type of trophy. Amy Tan uses elements such as character, symbolism, and setting to portray the themes of struggle between two cultures and independence perfectly in “Rules of the Game.”
In Edwidge Danticat’s novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, the reader follows the life of young Haitian girl Sophie Caco. Living with her aunt and later her mother, Sophie grows up with mostly the influence of women in her family. Growing older, though, she learns what a heavy burden she carries being a woman, and the strict traditions she must conform to. Sophie spends her life split between Haiti and New York City, where her mother, Martine, lives. Back in her home country of Haiti, she lives with her Tante Atie, and although there is the presence of colorful Haitian culture, there is also political instability and disturbing, sexist traditions. In New York, she struggles to fit in with her birth mother in modern America. Her heart is torn between these two countries and her trust of her mother.In Breath, Eyes, Memory, Haiti’s vibrant traditions and corrupt politics are reflected as well as its inferior treatment of women.
In “Caroline’s Wedding,” both Ma and Grace respect their Haitian culture. Ma, Grace, and Caroline take a cab home from Eric’s house, who is Caroline’s fiancé. While in the cab, Ma advises Caroline, “‘We know people by their stories,’...‘Gossip goes very far. Grace heard women gossip in the Mass behind us the other day, and you hear what they say about Haitian women who forget themselves when they come here. Value yourself’” (Danticat 185). Ma does not want her daughter to forget her Haitian heritage, not only because she might be gossiped by others,
Monday morning, Sally, a twelve-year-old American girl, is woken up by her father. As she gets ready to go to school, her mother hands her a backpack and lunch with a quick kiss goodbye. Meanwhile, Zarina, a twelve-year-old Sierra Leone girl, wakes herself up to get ready for work. Her aunt says good morning as they both head from their home to the cassava fields. Both of these girls have a traditional family setting. In America children in a traditional family grow up with both biological parents and any siblings they have. In Sierra Leone, the setting for both The Bite of the Mango and A Long Way Gone, children of traditional families live with aunts and uncles as well as many children from different parents. These different views of what is traditional create uniqe children in many ways. Children who grow up in Sierra Leone are more self-reliant than American children.