Struggles of Immigration in Bates' Midnight at the Dragon Cafe and Kroetsch's "Elegy for Wong Toy"

1246 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Thesis about immigrants

Judy Fong Bates’ Midnight at the Dragon Café and Robert Kroetsch’s “Elegy for Wong Toy” use the representation of the Café to place focus on the hardships of immigration. Kroetsch’s “Elegy for Wong Toy” “is a thank you poem” (Kroetsch 321), which focuses not only on the life events the narrator is thankful for experiencing in Charlie’s café, but also the isolation and alienation Charlie experienced in that “prairie town” (Kroetsch 321). Much like Charlie in Kroetsch’s “Elegy for Wong Toy,” the Chens, specifically Su-Jen’s parents and Lee-Kung, also experience alienation and isolation in the town of Irvine. Bates’ Midnight at the Dragon Café and Kroetsch’s “Elegy for Wong Toy” are both works that use their respective cafés in order to represent the struggles of identity, the discovery of self, and the hardships and sacrifices of immigration.

The function of the Chinese Restaurant in Midnight at the Dragon Café acts as a bubble of protection for the Chens. Su-Jen, however, lives both inside and outside of this bubble, inside both worlds of China and Canada; this is shown very early on in the novel when Su-Jen adopts a “Canadian name” (Bates 21), in order to assimilate into the Canadian culture. Unlike Annie, her parents and Lee-Kung keep their Chinese names, and by extension they keep themselves separate from Canadian culture. The restaurant provides a sanctuary for Annie’s parents and Lee-Kung, since the restaurant seems to be the only place they truly belong in Irvine. In Toronto with the established Chinese (China Town) community, the older Chinese-minded Chens feel more at ease because they are surrounded by people who speak the same language, are going through the same struggles, whom they can talk to and understand, nothing l...

... middle of paper ...

...he Dragon Café symbolize hardship, struggle, opportunity, sanctuary, and most importantly both café’s are a place of self discovery that allows each narrator to realize who they are and appreciate all that they have experienced in these café’s. For Su-Jen (Annie), the café was a world in which she no longer belonged, but where her family found sanctuary and solace. In “Elegy for Wong Toy,” the café was an escape from the outside world to the narrator, a place he went to experience life, while for Charlie it was his only sanctuary away from the alienating world that surrounded him the moment he stepped outside.

Works Cited

Bates, Judy F. Midnight at the Dragon Café. Toronto: Emblem Editions, 2005. Print.

Kroetsch, Robert. "Elegy for Wong Toy." Canadian Literature in English Texts and Contexts Volume II. Toronto: Pearson Longman, 2009. 320-321. Print.

Show More
Related

  • An Analysis of Robert Ji-Song Ku's Leda

    1958 Words  | 4 Pages

    Wong, Shawn, ed. Asian American Literature: A Brief Introduction and Anthology. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers, 1996.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Judy Fong-Bates 'The Gold Mountain Coat'

    279 Words  | 1 Pages

    Judy Fong-Bates’ “The Gold Mountain Coat” discusses the childhood of the narrator who is a Chinese immigrant living in Canada. The narrator, even at a young age, possesses such admirable keen observation as she is able to notice the environment and even the situation of people around her. Living in a small town that is “typical of many small towns in Ontario” with only one Chinese family neighbor, the narrator is the only Chinese child. With the nearing day of arrival of John’s family, the narrator feels uneasy of her new responsibilities.

    Read More

  • Hangzhou Short Story

    726 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Symbols and Subversion in 13 Happiness Street

    2163 Words  | 5 Pages

    Bei Dao, "13 Happiness Street." Contemporary Literature of Asia. Ed. Arthur Biddle et al. Blair: Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1996. 280-291.

    Read More

  • Immigrant Reality Exposed in Bread Givers

    3301 Words  | 7 Pages

    He, Qiang Shan. "Chinese-American Literature." New Immigrant Literatures in the United States: A Sourcebook to Our Multicultural Literary Heritage. Ed. Alpana Sharma Knippling. WEstport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996. 44-65.

    Read More

  • Human Oppressiveness in Two Kinds and A&P

    2353 Words  | 5 Pages

    In analyzing these two stories, it is first notable to mention how differing their experiences truly are. Sammy is a late adolescent store clerk who, in his first job, is discontent with the normal workings of society and the bureaucratic nature of the store at which he works. He feels oppressed by the very fabric and nature of aging, out-of date rules, and, at the end of this story, climaxes with exposing his true feelings and quits his jobs in a display of nonconformity and rebellion. Jing-Mei, on the other hand, is a younger Asian American whose life and every waking moment is guided by the pressures of her mother, whose idealistic word-view aids in trying to mold her into something decent by both the double standards Asian society and their newly acquired American culture. In contrasting these two perspectives, we see that while ...

    Read More

  • Americanization in The Joy Luck Club

    1951 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Imporance of the Setting in A Pair of Tickets by Amy Tan

    669 Words  | 2 Pages

    The setting of the story creates a better grasp on the intelligence of each character. The narrator of the story goes from her belief that there is no way she is Chinese to understanding her heritage and that she is really Chinese. The narrator states that she doesn’t really know what it means to be Chinese (Tan 133). She progressively learns throughout the story what it means to be Chinese. She mentions of Aiyi and her father knowing Mandarin only while the rest of Aiyi’s family only knows Cantonese (Tan 137). This relates to setting due to the time and areas that Mandarin was spoken compared to where Cantonese is spoken now. The narrator was shocked to see the elegance of the hotel they were scheduled to stay in and the pricing (Tan 138). This can be interpreted as her being inexperienced while the rest of her family were either used to this kind of service or had no outstanding opinions upon it. The narrator starts to see her father in a different manner once he and Aiyi start conversing and onc...

    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

  • Summary Of Interior Chinatown By Willis Wu

    2206 Words  | 5 Pages

    The father and son navigate Chinatown, a place where lives are defined by their adherence to social norms and stereotypes, with a shared sense of disillusionment and unfulfilled expectations. Ming-Chen has made peace with the web of systematic oppression he has become entangled in, but he hopes for more for Willis. Willis wants to leave behind the two-dimensional characters that Asian men are forced to play, but the only way to escape is to initially feed into the system. During Willis’ time as the interrogating Special Guest Star with accented language, “Old Asian Man looks at you, a look of disappointment flickering across his features with each accented word. You play this part, talking like a foreigner.

    Read More

  • Li Bai's Influence

    889 Words  | 2 Pages

    Chen, Zu-yan. Li Bai & Du Fu: An Advanced Reader of Chinese Language and Literature =. Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 2008. Print.

    Read More

  • Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird

    3438 Words  | 7 Pages

    Mitgang tells us that the novel is about the life of two children who live in a small town, where they deal with racism in society. Prejudice surrounds their childhood, and it lurks with them while they are playing, and even while they are in the classroom. Mitgang tells us that on top of all this, racism is conveyed in the children?s language.

    Read More

  • Amy Tan's Stereotypes

    1142 Words  | 3 Pages

    As the great French writer Voltaire once said, “Writing is the painting of the voice” (Voltaire). By stating this, he insightfully implies that writing can be interpreted and presented in numerous ways that are unique to each individual author. Representing this idea in a purely individual way, writer Amy Tan presented her stories of family and relationships from the rarely demonstrated Chinese-American perspective. Instead of making her stories immediately applicable to a fully white audience, she stayed true to her own story and majorly influenced American literature on the whole. Through her writing, Amy Tan challenged America’s stereotypes of Asian people by examining common relationships between mother and daughter.

    Read More

  • Panda Express Analysis

    554 Words  | 2 Pages

    Panda Express in St.George Utah is a four-star restaurant. First, the atmosphere at Panda Express cultural. For example, the restaurant has Chinese music playing in the background. While the customers wait in line, the Chinese music in the background prepares them for the food they are about to eat. The calm Chinese instruments make this restaurant feel more relaxed. The music is Chinese song by women, the Chinese women who sing have calm and beautiful singing voices. This music makes the customers wonder what the Chinese women might be singing about. While the customers wait in line some might even start a game, of guessing what the Chinese women in the music are saying. In addition, Panda Express has these Chinese pictures hanging on the

    Read More

  • Space And Place In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

    1154 Words  | 3 Pages

    Amy Tan’s novel ‘The Joy Luck Club’ focuses on the experiences of a group of women from different generations who gather to play mah-jong in San Francisco. From immigrant Asian background, the women share the stories of their lives, covering the treatment and mis-treatment of Asian immigrants throughout twentieth century US history. However, for many readers ‘The Joy Luck Club’ remains a powerful evocation of the experiences of a section of society – immigrant Asian women – who have for many years lacked a clear and cohesive public voice. While the novel has many important themes that would be worthy of a feminist analysis, such as mother-daughter relationships, romantic relationships, a discussion on the importance of space and place is important. To begin with, social theorist Manuel Castells (2000) has argued

    Read More

More about Struggles of Immigration in Bates' Midnight at the Dragon Cafe and Kroetsch's "Elegy for Wong Toy"

Open Document