So Paper Daughter Analysis

1009 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Gender in literature

M. Jäger made her presentation on the paper daughter as an autobiography. At the begining, the presenter told what is life writing: It is a “non-fiction” writing on subjects of personal experience and observation; including autobiography, biography, memoir, personal essay, and travel and sojourn writing. So Paper Daughter can be seen as life writing. We discussed the reason why the author named her autobiography paper daughter as well as the motivation of her to write this autobiography. Originally paper daughter or paper son refer to the Chinese immigrants who proclaimed as the children of an American citizen in order to succeed in the immigration to the U.S.A. The title of the novel implicates her Chinese immigrant background. Besides, …show more content…

Elaine Mar’s paper daughter with Andre Lorde’s Zami concerning gender and sexuality. Andre Lorde treasures the difference in sexuality by tracing her difference back to the tradition in which Lesbian behaviors are normal between women. In this way, she becomes powerful and ambitious. In contrast, the sexuality in M. Elaine Mar contradicts with her family value in which she has little sense of identity. The requirement of behaving as a girl from her family on one hand, and the rejection of her classmates on the other hand, place little room for her to develop as an independent human being. However, sexuality let she assert herself as a complete and integrated person. As we can see, both of the two authors are searching for their own identities under the U.S. society. Sexuality is a way to get to know …show more content…

They lived in their Chinese way of life and were marginalized by the main society. In contrast, for the author, living in the U.S.A. the non-conformity of her families’ value stimulate her to leave to search for her own identity and finally she moved to some place her family couldn’t reach. However, the memories of her family can’t really leave her. It’s been part of her identity which can’t be denied. In writing this autobiography, she wants to reveal another part of her which relates with her Chinese families even though there are so much pain and suppression in the

Show More
Related

  • Mother Daughter Relationships in works by Chang Rae-Lee and Amy Tan

    778 Words  | 2 Pages

    Both Chang Rae-Lee and Amy Tan use their articles to illustrate the impact their mothers had on creating a respectable ethos as a writer. Lee and Tan are authentic and true, which are great values instilled by a mother that shine through in their writing. These articles are great examples of how much a writer’s ethos contributes to his/her overall argument. As said by Lee, "Having been raised in an immigrant family,…[one sees] everyday the exacting price and power of language…" (Lee 584).

    Read More

  • Examples Of Individuality In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1899 Words  | 4 Pages

    One’s sexuality is undeniably a major part of who they are as an individual. The sexuality of characters plays a major role throughout the book and this is used to show how society

    Read More

  • The Life and Career of Amy Tan

    1456 Words  | 3 Pages

    Growing up in California, Tan continued to embrace the typical values of Americans. She had taken on American values as her own identity, completely ignoring most of her Chinese heritage. In fact, young Amy Tan would answer her mother’s Chinese questions in English (Miller 1162). Teenage Amy Tan lost both her father and sixteen-year-old brother to brain tumors. Soon after that, she learned that she had two half-sisters in China from her mother’s first marriage (“Amy Tan Biography”). In 1987, Tan made a trip to China to meet those very same ...

    Read More

  • A Mother-Daughter Relationship in The Woman Warrior

    1481 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that ran like this one, a story to grow up on. She tested our strengths to establish realities”(5). In the book “The Woman Warrior,” Maxine Kingston is most interested in finding out about Chinese culture and history and relating them to her emerging American sense of self. One of the main ways she does so is listening to her mother’s talk-stories about the family’s Chinese past and applying them to her life.

    Read More

  • Sexuality In Audre Lorde

    891 Words  | 2 Pages

    What art succeeds in doing is transmute the sexual expression into an acceptable form - by turning it into a thing of beauty and approximating it into a haze of sublimity. In the post- modern climate of media, eros as sexuality reels dangerously on the brink of pornography. Yet what is also important is to realize that it is an important lens to view our social, political and cultural identities. At the beginning of the twentieth century, sexuality rode on the tide of social progressivism and became a vehicle for artistic expression in the novel. Also, when eros as sexuality serves as a principal theme in serious or popular literature, it is often used as a means of remarking upon the dynamics in a society. This is the point that is scrutinised and analysed in this paper where the sexuality of women is seen as an important definition and perspective in Toni Morrison’s Sula (1973).The novel explores the lives and friendship of Sula Peace and Nel Wright in the black neighbourhood dubiously named ‘The Bottom’ in the city of Medallion . The novel also investigates lives of its various female characters in this community who add to our understanding of the life of African American women. Morrison is one of the most remarkable African-American authors of the twentieth century and her novels remind readers that the position of African-Americans in the white-dominant society of the United States of

    Read More

  • Characterism In A Pair Of Tickets By Amy Tan

    2060 Words  | 5 Pages

    “The minute our train leaves the Hong Kong border and enters Shenzhen, China, I feel different. I can feel the skin on my forehead tingling, my blood rushing through a new course, my bones aching with a familiar old pain. And I think, my mother was right. I am becoming Chinese. (179). In the story A Pair of Tickets by Amy Tan, the protagonist character, Jing-mei, finds herself in several difficult situations due to how her social and cultural upbringing has shaped her. She finds herself pulled between her Chinese DNA and her American background. While she was raised being told that she was Chinese and “it’s in her blood”, she does not identify as such, because she grew up in America and only sees herself as an American. After her mother’s passing,

    Read More

  • The Red Tent by Diamant

    1734 Words  | 4 Pages

    With a heart-full of advice and wisdom, Dinah maturates from a simple- minded young girl to a valiant independent individual. “For a moment I weighed the idea of keeping my secret and remaining a girl, the thought passes quickly. I could only be what I was. And that was a woman” (170). This act of puberty is not only her initiation into womanhood but the red tent as well. She is no longer just an observer of stories, she is one of them, part of their community now. On account of this event, Dinah’s sensuality begins to blossom and she is able to conceive the notion of true love.

    Read More

  • Chinese and American Cultures

    4366 Words  | 9 Pages

    Chinese-Americans authors Amy Tan and Gish Jen have both grappled with the idea of mixed identity in America. For them, a generational problem develops over time, and cultural displacement occurs as family lines expand. While this is not the problem in and of itself, indeed, it is natural for current culture to gain foothold over distant culture, it serves as the backdrop for the disorientation that occurs between generations. In their novels, Tan and Jen pinpoint the cause of this unbalance in the active dismissal of Chinese mothers by their Chinese-American children.

    Read More

  • Twinkies

    857 Words  | 2 Pages

    Similarly, Wong also grew up in America with a traditional Chinese mother. In contrast, Wong’s upbringing involves her mother forcing her into attending two different schools. After her American school day, Wong continues on with Chinese school to learn both cultures. Her mother felt it was her duty to “[. . .] learn the language of [her] heritage” (Wong 144). This puts a burden on Wong as she starts to despise the Chinese culture.

    Read More

  • Mother Tongue by Amy Tan

    1081 Words  | 3 Pages

    Amy Tan’s ,“Mother Tongue” and Maxine Kingston’s essay, “No Name Woman” represent a balance in cultures when obtaining an identity in American culture.  As first generation Chinese-Americans both Tan and Kingston faced many obstacles. Obstacles in language and appearance while balancing two cultures. Overcoming these obstacles that were faced and preserving heritage both women gained an identity as a successful American.

    Read More

  • Mother Daughter Relationships - The Mother-daughter Relationship in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

    821 Words  | 2 Pages

    The second and third sections are about the daughters' lives, and the vignettes in each section trace their personality growth and development. Through the eyes of the daughters, we can also see the continuation of the mothers' stories, how they learned to cope in America. In these sections, Amy Tan explores the difficulties in growing up as a Chinese-American and the problems assimilating into modern society. The Chinese-American daughters try their best to become "Americanized," at the same time casting off their heritage while their mothers watch on, dismayed. Social pressures to become like everyone else, and not to be different are what motivate the daughters to resent their nationality. This was a greater problem for Chinese-American daughters that grew up in the 50's, when it was not well accepted to be of an "ethnic" background.

    Read More

  • Communication in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

    578 Words  | 2 Pages

    Each of the Chinese mothers attempted to guide her daughters, yet they were ill equipped to translate their life experiences in China to the alien environment they found in America. It was their lives, not their language, that they were unable to translate. Like her friend Lindo, An Mei Hsu was raised the Chinese way, as she describes:

    Read More

  • Theme Of A Pair Of Tickets By Amy Tan

    869 Words  | 2 Pages

    June-May fulfills her mother’s name and life goal, her long-cherished wish. She finally meets her twin sisters and in an essence fulfills and reunites her mother with her daughter through her. For when they are all together they are one; they are their mother. It is here that June-May fulfills the family portion of her Chinese culture of family. In addition, she fully embraces herself as Chinese. She realizes that family is made out of love and that family is the key to being Chinese. “And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.” (Tan 159). Finally, her mother’s life burden is lifted and June-May’s doubts of being Chinese are set aside or as she says “After all these years, it can finally be let go,” (Tan 159).

    Read More

  • In the American Society

    1242 Words  | 3 Pages

    This story is an allegory of life for many Chinese Americans. Many came to America for the opportunity to lead a better life. Entrepreneurship is a big part of that American dream. The Changs’ owning a pancake house represents so many of the Chinese people that own their own restaurants upon coming to America. Mr. Chang’s hesitance to Americanize and his idea that “to embrace what he embraced was love” also represents the views of many Chinese immigrants. Jen’s own parents maintained some of their own ideas of how she should live her life. They didn’t believe that writing was an honorable thing for a woman to do and didn’t support her in her decision until her picture and story was run on the front page of a Chinese newspaper and “their people” accepted it.

    Read More

  • Lucy In Jamaica Kincaid's Antigua

    1775 Words  | 4 Pages

    Lucy, the eponymous character of Jamaica Kincaid’s second novel, moves from Antigua to New York not in an arbitrary move, but in a calculated effort to explore her latent queer sexuality and gradually escape the gendered labor of her homeland. By working as an au pair for an upper class white woman named Mariah, Lucy trades birthing labor for domestic labor in a move that initially seems lateral, but serves as a potential gateway to freedom from caretaking that would have been inaccessible in Antigua. Unbridled from her mother, the American Lucy has opportunities to explore her sexuality without being deemed promiscuous, and has the ability to live with a woman she can have intimate relations with. Lucy has continuously disobeyed the performative

    Read More

More about So Paper Daughter Analysis

Open Document