Amy Tan Essay Example for Free

Amy Tan Essay Although the daughters know some Chinese words and the mothers speak some English, communication often becomes a matter of translation, of words whose intended meaning and accepted meaning are in fact quite separate, leading to subtle misunderstandings. †¢The first mention of this difficulty with translation occurs when Jing-mei relates the story of her mother’s founding of the Joy Luck Club. After attempting to explain the significance of the club’s name, Jing-mei recognizes that the concept is not something that can be translated. She points out that the daughters think their mothers are stupid because of their fractured English, while the mothers are impatient with their daughters who don’t understand the cultural nuances of their language and who do not intend to pass along their Chinese heritage to their own children. Throughout the book, characters bring up one Chinese concept after another, only to accept the frustrating fact that an understanding of Chinese culture is a prerequisite to understanding its meaning. †¢The Power of Storytelling Because the barriers between the Chinese and the American cultures are exacerbated by imperfect translation of language, the mothers use storytelling to circumvent these barriers and communicate with their daughters. The stories they tell are often educational, warning against certain mistakes or giving advice based on past successes. For instance, Ying-ying’s decision to tell Lena about her past is motivated by her desire to warn Lena against the pa ssivity and fatalism that Ying-ying suffered. Storytelling is also employed to communicate messages of love and pride, and to illumine one’s inner self for others. †¢Another use of storytelling concerns historical legacy. By telling their daughters about their family histories, the mothers ensure that their lives are remembered and understood by subsequent generations, so that the characters who acted in the story never die away completely. In telling their stories to their daughters, the mothers try to instill them with respect for their Chinese ancestors and their Chinese pasts. Suyuan hopes that by finding her long-lost daughters and telling them her story, she can assure them of her love, despite her apparent abandonment of them. When Jing-mei sets out to tell her half-sisters Suyuan’s story, she also has this goal in mind, as well as her own goal of letting the twins know who their mother was and what she was like. †¢Storytelling is also used as a way of controlling one’s own fate. In many ways, the original purpose of the Joy Luck Club was to create a place to exchange stories. Faced with pain and hardship, Suyuan decided to take control of the plot of her life. The Joy Luck Club did not simply serve as a distraction; it also enabled transformation—of community, of love and support, of circumstance. Stories work to encourage a certain sense of independence. They are a way of forging one’s own identity and gaining autonomy. Waverly understands this: while Lindo believes that her daughter’s crooked nose means that she is ill-fated, Waverly dismisses this passive interpretation and changes her identity and her fate by reinventing the story that is told about a crooked nose. †¢The Problem of Immigrant Identity At some point in the novel, each of the major characters expresses anxiety over her inability to reconcile her Chinese heritage with her American surroundings. Indeed, this reconciliation is the very aim of Jing-mei’s journey to China. While the daughters in the novel are genetically Chinese (except for Lena, who is half Chinese) and have been raised in mostly Chinese households, they also identify with and feel at home in modern American culture. Waverly, Rose, and Lena all have white boyfriends or husbands, and they regard many of their mothers’ customs and tastes as old-fashioned or even ridiculous. Most of them have spent their childhoods trying to escape their Chinese identities: Lena would walk around the house with her eyes opened as far as possible so as to make them look European. Jing-mei denied during adolescence that she had any internal Chinese aspects, insisting that her Chinese identity was limited only to her external features. Lindo meditates that Waverly would have clapped her hands for joy during her teen years if her mother had told her that she did not look Chinese. As they mature, the daughters begin to sense that their identities are incomplete and become interested in their Chinese heritage. Waverly speaks wishfully about blending in too well in China and becomes angry when Lindo notes that she will be recognized instantly as a tourist. One of Jing-mei’s greatest fears about her trip to China is not that others will recognize her as American, but that she herself will fail to recognize any Chinese elements within herself. †¢Of the four mothers, L indo expresses the most anxiety over her cultural identity. Having been spotted as a tourist during her recent trip to China, she wonders how America has changed her. She has always believed in her ability to shift between her true self and her public self, but she begins to wonder whether her â€Å"true† self is not, in fact, her American one. Even while a young girl in China, Lindo showed that she did not completely agree with Chinese custom. She agonized over how to extricate herself from a miserable marriage without dishonoring her parents’ promise to her husband’s family. While her concern for her parents shows that Lindo did not wish to openly rebel against her tradition, Lindo made a secret promise to herself to remain true to her own desires. This promise shows the value she places on autonomy and personal happiness—two qualities that Lindo associates with American culture. †¢Jing-mei’s experience in China at the end of the book certainly seems to support the possibility of a richly mixed identity rather than an identity of warring opposites. She comes to see that China itself contains American aspects, just as the part of America she grew up in—San Francisco’s Chinatown—containe †¢ Storytelling – Narrative Style, Symbolism, Figurative Language †¢She uses storytelling to in order for the different characters to understand each others struggles as well as the reader to understand the lives and emotions of both the mother and the daughters †¢The stories they tell are often educational, warning against certain mistakes or giving advice based on past successes. For instance, Ying-ying’s decision to tell Lena about her past is motivated by her desire to warn Lena against the passivity and fatalism that Ying-ying suffered. Storytelling is also employed to communicate messages of love and pride, and to illumine one’s inner self for others. †¢Another use of storytelling concerns historical legacy. By telling their daughters about their family histories, the mothers ensure that their lives are remembered and understood by subsequent generations, so that the characters who acted in the story never die away completely. In telling their stories to their daughters, the mothers try to instill them with respect for their Chinese ancestors and their Chinese pasts. Suyuan hopes that by finding her long-lost daughters and telling them her story, she can assure them of her love, despite her apparent abandonment of them. When Jing-mei sets out to tell her half-sisters Suyuan’s story, she also has this goal in mind, as well as her own goal of letting the twins know who their mother was and what she was like. †¢Storytelling is also used as a way of controlling one’s own fate. In many ways, the original purpose of the Joy Luck Club was to create a place to exchange stories. Faced with pain and hardship, Suyuan decided to take control of the plot of her life. The Joy Luck Club did not simply serve as a distraction; it also enabled transformation—of community, of love and support, of circumstance. Stories work to encourage a certain sense of independence. They are a way of forging one’s own identity and gaining autonomy. Waverly understands this: while Lindo believes that her daughter’s crooked nose means that she is ill-fated, Waverly dismisses this passive interpretation and changes her identity and her fate by reinventing the story that is told about a crooked nose. †¢ All the stories in her books are interlocking personal narrative in different voices. The narrators appear as characters in each other’s stories as well as tell their own stories, Tan does not have to fully develop the narrator’s voice in each story. While American daughters like Jing-mei employ personal narrative as a way of telling stories, the ’’ Because this indirect means is the only way Jing-mei’s mother c an interpret and express her experiences, she is shocked into silence when her daughter speaks directly about the daughters she abandoned in China years earlier. Point of View †¢In â€Å"Two Kinds† the perspective moves back and forth between the adult and then child. In this way, Tan tells the story through the child’s innocent view and the adult’s experienced eyes. This allows reader to make judgments of their own, to add their own interpretations of the mother daughter struggle. Figurative Language †¢This literary device also invites readers to think about the way memory itself functions, how we use events in the past to help make sense of our present. Literary critic Ben Xu explains that ‘‘it is not just that we have ‘images,’ ‘pictures,’ and ‘views’ of ourselves in memory, but that we also have ‘stories’ and narratives to tell about the past which both shape and convey our sense of self. Our sense of what has happened to us is entailed not in actual happening but in meaningful happenings, and the meanings of our past experience . . . are constr ucts produced in much the same way that narrative is produced. ’’ †¢In other words memory is a two-way street; it shapes the story as much as the story makes the memory. In Xu’s words, ‘‘memory is not just a narrative, even though it does have to take a narrative form; it is more importantly an experiential relation between the past and the present, projecting a future as well. ’’ Tan’s style is mainly composed of storytelling as a way for her characters to share their history and retell the significant events of their lives. The Chinese mothers find it exceptionally difficult to talk about their lives due to the language barrier; therefore Tan uses a strategy that is borrowed from Chinese folk tradition called talk story (Brent). E. D. Huntley defines talk story as ‘‘a narrative strategy for those characters whose ties to Chinese tradition remain strong. ’’ It allows these characters to ‘‘draw on traditional oral forms to shape their stories and to disguise the urgency and seriousness with which they are attempting to transmit to their daughters the remnants of a culture that is fading even from their own lives. ’’ This means that the mothers, ‘‘who have been socialized into silence for most of their lives,’’ learn to ‘‘reconfigure the events of hese lives into acceptable public utterances: painful experiences are recast in the language of folk tale; cautionary reminders become gnomic phrases; real life takes on the contours of myth (Huntley). † Story telling serves many different functions in the novel. Primarily, the mother’s use storytelling to communicate with their daughters about their past and better relate to their daughters. In Kitchen God’s Wife, Winnie and Pearl have a hard time understanding each other’s situation as they have had a disconnect since Pearl was a teenager. However, after Winnie tells Pearl the stories of the hardships she had to face living with her abusive husband in China and how that has made her the hard person she is today, Pearl is able to connect better with her mother and understand where she is coming from. Another purpose of storytelling is so the mother’s can teach their daughters important life lessons that can help them be happy as many of the daughters are struggling with their marriages. Thus, she knows that the only way to save her daughter is to tell her story, the story of how her submission to fate and other people’s wills led to discontent and even agony. In her novels, Amy Tan allows her characters to employ storytelling as a device for shaping their histories and making coherent sense of the significant events of their lives. For these characters, storytelling is a means of keeping the past alive and building a bridge between it and the present, of transmitting cultural codes and rituals, of subtly educating their daughters, and finally of somehow imprinting the essence of their selves on the next generation. Tan is especially gifted at weaving multiple stories with a variety of narrators into the intricate fabric of each book. Tan herself has recognized her own ability to construct distinctive and memorable narratives, commenting that her storytelling gifts are responsible in large measure for the ongoing popularity-with readers and critics alike-of her work. She has said that her childhood exposure to Bible stories as well as tons of fairy tales, both Grimm and Chinese (Wang) has made stories a significant element in her writing, and she credits her parents with both instilling in her the impulse to tell stories and providing her with models for unforgettable. In an interview with Gretchen Giles, Amy Tan reveals that she learned the craft of story construction from her father, a very busy Baptist minister who managed to spend quality time with his children by reading his sermons to them and then asking for their opinions on content and language. Citations Xu, Ben. ‘‘Memory and the Ethnic Self: Reading Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club,’’ in MELUS, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 3-16. Huntley, E. D. Amy Tan: A Critical Companion, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. Brent, Liz. ‘‘Amy Tan Criticism Overview. ’’ Short Stories for Students. Ed. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1997. 19–20: 288.

An Internet for Everyone :: Internet Web Cyberspace Essays

An Internet for Everyone Web Sight by Arati Bechtel an article in the Camarillo Star, explains how the Internet claim that Everyone can use the internet is wrong in many ways. For people who are mentally or physically disabled, it is much more difficult to get the same access and effectiveness out of the internet as for someone who is completely healthy. The internet is about 99% visual and for someone who is visually impaired, it would be extremely difficult to use the internet. Arati Bechtel explains in her article about some of the research done on accessibility to the internet for the visually impaired and says that there is some new software for the blind that has been make with a better design to help them use the internet as apposed to the old way of using brail. An example of these programs is called Jaws Screen Reader, it is a program that takes the text and reads it out loud to the user. This allows a blind person to log on and listen to their email or listen to some information that they could pos sibly be looking for. But theses programs are not nearly enough and not nearly developed enough to be effectively used by the disabled. Bechtel states that more needs to be done for the internet to be used by everyone. Howard Rheingolds theory about the internet in his article The Heart of the WELL is that by logging on to the WELL, everyone can find there place for support or use it as a parenting community. Whichever way you choose to go, everyone will always find a place to feel comfortable in a community and find support from other people. (Rheingold 154) He describes how he and others in a community had an ongoing conversation with the father of a girl that had an illness, and with the support of the WELL, the woman was able to recover from her illness Figueroa 2 and come to a full recovery. He also described how a parent could have a question about the health of their infant child, and acquire the information quicker by logging on to the WELL and asking the users, then by call ing a doctor directly. (Rheingold 151) Another use of the WELL was to help each other on different parenting techniques assisting parents to become better mothers and fathers all around the world.

Health Care: History, Developments, and Problems Essay

Health care is necessary in every individual’s well-being. A lot of individuals require health care in one way or another, for, unfortunately, illness—not to mention old age and the disadvantages that come along with it—are inevitable. While it may seem rather frivolous to many, it is necessary to understand the various aspects of health care, as well as the related issues to it, for this will help pinpoint necessary information in the advent one needs to undergo hospitalization and long-term care. Understanding Nonprofit and For-profit Hospitals The difference between nonprofit and for-profit hospitals is actually historical. Nonprofit hospitals are were originally found by religious organizations. In a sense, these hospitals are those which aim to help people out of kindness. It is stated that nonprofit hospitals tend to be more dedicated in caring for their patients because their motivation is to help people without expecting anything in return. However, one important issue regarding nonprofit hospitals is that their facilities and equipment may not be updated, for they are getting no returns for their service (Cutler, 2000). On the other hand, for-profit hospitals are those hospitals which eventually emerged from nonprofit hospitals due to one important factor: profit. for-profit hospitals earn money and can afford to develop their health care programs, as well as provide better equipment and facilities in order to provide better service. Apart from this, for-profit hospitals can fund health education for its employees as well as fund medical research. However, it is stated that for-profit hospitals might skimp on health care. Since for-profit hospitals have â€Å"shareholders who demand the highest possible returns† (Cutler, 2000, p. ), there is a tendency for the hospital to be stingy with its services in order to provide the business demands of its shareholders (Cutler, 2000). Trends in the Hospital Sector As the service of health care improved over time, a various amount of changes occurred. Currently, there are several trends in the hospital sector which are said to aim for organization improvement and better service. One of the most prominent trends in the hospital sectors is the consolidation of hospitals. This merging is done in order to ensure that some of the small hospitals are able to survive. Apart from this, merging is a way to improve health care quality, as well as strengthen their financial and organizational capacity. This will also end the competition between hospitals whenever there are scarcities in resources (Laschober, Wiley & Gelband, 1995). Another trend in the hospital sector is the increasing number of doctors who specialize in various fields of practice. This only means that hospitals have decided to focus on creating a more efficient means of treatment for patients through hiring a wide range of specialists who can provide the appropriate health care needed by a patient. Laschober, Wiley & Gelband, 1995). And lastly, the hospital sector has largely improved in its patient care through removing the hotel function of hospitals. Gone are the days that patients need to spend days lying on a hospital bed; there is now a significant increase in the volume of outpatient care and the trend is that patients who undergo same-day surgeries and are allowed to go home on the same day (Laschober, Wiley & Gelband, 1995). Long-Term Care in Hospitals and Nursing Homes Nursing homes are residential settings for individuals who need assistance; commonly, individuals who are admitted into nursing homes are there due to poverty, advanced age, living alone, impaired mental status, loss of ability to take care of oneself, heart disease, and dementia. Primarily, the criterion is that the individual must be sick enough to need nursing care, but not sick enough that he or she requires hospitalization. Read more: Problems of Old Age Essay The long-term care plan in nursing home involves assisted-living facilities (focuses on providing all of the basic needs), special care units (different units created to address different needs of specific residents in the nursing home) and resident-centered care (addresses the need of patients for increased quality of life) (Miller, 2009). On the other hand, long-term care in hospitals is very different; usually, patients require an array of services which are dependent on the their changing condition. This is referred to as integrated care, wherein every single condition is addressed differently. Also, unlike a nursing home, patients are not required to stay in for a long time in hospitals; they may eventually go to their homes under the care and supervision of home health agencies (Singh, 2010), whereas those who are admitted in nursing homes are predetermined to stay there. Also, the patient can move into different types of long-term care, depending on his or her condition—this can also mean that the services provided may either be long-term or non-long term (Singh, 2010). Long-term Care in the United States As seen in the aforementioned discussion, long-term health care is undoubtedly important in ensuring that patients are well-cared for during times of illnesses and weakness. However, currently, the state of the long-term care policy in the United States is rather problematic. For example, long-term care benefits cannot be collected for the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) program is still not running. The earliest predicted date when individuals can claim their benefits will be in 2017, which is a problem especially if some individuals need benefits to support their hospitalization and so on. Apart from this, this health care policy concerning CLASS does not cover individuals who are not working, such as those who cannot work or retired (Andrews, 2010). Summary As seen in the aforementioned discussion, health care has come a long way from being provided by religious institutions. It has developed systems for the benefit of its patients, as well as new policies. However, it could be seen in the current situation of long-term care in the United States, there needs to be more improvement in order to attain the appropriate policies to serve the people. In a nutshell, although long-term care has been developed appropriately, whether it is on a hospital or in a nursing home, long-term care policies which have been currently implemented, such as CLASS, will prohibit people from receiving the appropriate health care. Even if such program will provide more benefits for individuals compared to the private long-term care insurances, it, nevertheless, excludes other individuals from being properly cared for because it is not encompassing.

The Dramatic Significance of Act four Scene One of...

The Dramatic Significance of Act four Scene One of William Shakespeares Much Ado About Nothing Act 4 in the romantic comedy Much ado about nothing is of great dramatic significance to the whole play, as it is in Scene 1 where Shakespeare brings out the different sides of the characters to illustrate the complexities of love and relationships. Act 4 Scene 1 is clustered with different incidents and in this essay, I will go through each event and describe its importance to the play as a whole. I will do this by showing how (with the use of language) Shakespeare expresses the feelings of his characters and uses theatrical stage actions to emphasize their emotions. The Scene begins with Claudios†¦show more content†¦His feeble and weak character is shown even more in this scene because as soon as Don John tells him that Hero has betrayed him, he again does not think. He should have thought and he remembered that Don John had deceived him before about Don Pedro wooing for Hero. Claudios character changes from confessing love to Hero, ...Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give myself for youà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ to making violent allegations at her and refusing to marry her in public. In Claudios speech, Shakespeare uses an oxymoron, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦But fair thee well, most foul, most fairà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ and this shows the two excessive attitudes that Claudio has of Hero. In addition Shakespeare uses many similes and metaphor in this scene, You seem to me as Dian in her orbà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ This illustrates that he used to believe and look at her as she was chaste goddess meaning that he never had the thought of Hero to delude him. Modern days, peoples over reactions are mostly based on keen emotions that they sometimes cant control. In this play the character of Claudio reacts excessively and this is with the sole purpose of Claudio and his outburst of rage. Furthermore, it shows that Claudio cant really control him emotion and this is associates to modern days. Additionally the ferocious way in which both Claudio and Leonato reacted towards Hero would not be very shocking toShow MoreRelatedWilliam Shakespeare s Much Ado About Nothing1225 Words   |  5 PagesBrings Laughter William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, a comedy filled with differences between genders, witty banter between memorable characters Benedick and Beatrice, a plot of revenge that involves one character faking her death and let’s not forget the masquerade marriage that comes to readers at the end. Much Ado About Nothing, court politics while still maintain a profound amount of humor and wit. However, it is the honor and shame that is prominent in Much Ado About Nothing that we reachRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s Much Ado About Nothing Essay1971 Words   |  8 PagesTransition in Much Ado About Nothing William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, a comedy filled with differences between genders, witty banter between memorable characters Benedick and Beatrice, a plot of revenge that involves one character faking her death and let’s not forget the masquerade marriage that comes to readers at the end. Much Ado About Nothing, court politics while still maintain a profound amount of humor and wit. However, it is the honor and shame that is prominent in Much Ado About NothingRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s English Literature Essay1667 Words   |  7 PagesWilliam Shakespeare has been best known for his poems, plays and masterful piece of writings in the English language. He has been referred to as the England s national poet and the Bard of Avon. He produced over thirty eight plays, hundred fifty four sonnets, five poems, and more verses. Shakespeare s plays consist of mainly tragedies, comedies and histories which are regarded as one of the best in those genres. The play s, the poems, and the sonnets have had a significance influence in EnglishRead MoreEssay about Renaissance Figures2969 Words   |  12 Pages through banking. He ended Florences traditional alliance with Venice and supported the Sforza family in Milan. His historical significance was being a patron to such artists as Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Ghiberti, and as the founder of the Medici Library. ? Lorenzo de Medici, also known as Lorenzo the Magnificent, lived from 1449--1492, and he was one of the towering figures of the Italian Renaissance. He had little success in business, however, and his lavish entertainments depletedRead MoreGp Essay Mainpoints24643 Words   |  99 PagesCelebrity as a role model h. Blame media for our problems i. Power + Responsibility of Media j. Media ethics k. New Media and Democracy 2. Science/Tech a. Science and Ethics b. Government and scientist role in science c. Rely too much on technology? d. Nuclear technology e. Genetic modification f. Right tech for wrong reasons 3. Arts/Culture a. Arts have a future in Singapore? b. Why pursue Arts? c. Arts and technology d. Uniquely Singapore: Culture 4. Environment