Lily Monteverde

Given that women have led successful businesses, raised families, and created positive changes all over the world, it is shocking how in many countries women are still being oppressed because of their gender. Amy Tan was aware of such male dominating cultures when she wrote her book, The Joy Luck Club. Within her novel, stories of Chinese mothers and their Chinese-American daughters reveal the cruelties towards women in the Chinese culture. One of her characters, An-Mei Hsu, speaks out on her experiences as a woman living in China. Through her rhetorical devices, she reveals her main idea that women living the Chinese way are stuck in a cycle of pain

Lily starts off stuck living in an unloving, abusive household and decides to free herself from the negative atmosphere that she had been living in her whole life. Lily is perpetually abused by her father. He forces her to kneel on Martha White's, gets exasperated every time she speaks, and yells at her for no reason. Lily is not the only one noticing the terrible treatment, Rosaleen does too. Once after Lily had to kneel on the Martha White's Rosaleen said to her, “Look at you, child. Look what he’s done to you” (Kidd 25). Noticing the unloving treatment Lily gets, Rosaleen knew that their household was demoralizing place for Lily to be in, which is why she didn’t question when Lily when she later runs away. Lily one day realizes she needs to do something about her horrible life at home. While sitting in her room she hears a voice in her

In The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Jing-Mei and her mother have a very rocky relationship. Tan develops a relationship between Suyuan and Jing-Mei that is distant in the beginning due to culture differences and miscommunication, but gradually strengthens with time and understanding. Both of them have different backgrounds and have been influenced by two different cultures. Suyuan grew up in China and behaves according to the Chinese culture and her American-born daughter Jing-Mei is influenced by the American culture that surrounds her and wants to become part of it.  Their relationship is also shaped by the pressure Suyuan puts on Jing-Mei. She wants her to be a perfect

Some may see the mother trying to live her life through her daughter. She invests time trying to make her daughter a prodigy because she was her last hope. The mother lost two children in China and moves to a new country. Coming to America, she felt that immigrants have to prove that they are as talented as or more talented than Americans. This belief is supposed to be the basis for the determination, that the mother has, for Jing-mei to become a prodigy.

At the beginning of the short story, Jing-mei shares about “becoming Chinese” (Tan 152). Living in San Francisco area, she had always felt disconnected from her Chinese culture. The most significant moment of Jing-mei’s acceptance of her Chinese culture was when her father told her about her mother’s journey from China to America during the time of the invasion. She truly learns to appreciate her mother because of all she had gone through. Jing-mei also understand the existence of her half-sisters and feels the need to visit and meet them, as they are part of her mother. Jing-mei’s original lookout on Chinese culture was developed their prejudices and stereotypes. After living with her Chinese family and learning more about her mother’s past,

Right away in the book we get to see how Lily feels about not having a mother. "This is what I know about myself. She was all I wanted. And I took her away." (Kidd 8). This quote shows how Lily feels that she is missing something in her life, a mother. Lily acts like this all throughout the book, she feels bad for herself for not growing up with a mom. It has a huge impact on Lily’s personality. It makes her have extreme mood swings and depression. She doesn’t get to be like all of the ‘other girls’ that have mothers, and this really brings Lily down.

Her journey of self growth is largely based on the fact that Lily feels that she has committed a terrible sin that has left her unlovable. Forgiving herself for her own mistakes is the most difficult obstacle Lily has overcome. Despite the great difficulty, the love and support that is given to her, as well as the lesson she had learned in forgiving her mother were essential to Lily’s ultimate forgiveness--“I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness, and I have to wake up and forgive us again.” (Kidd

In the contemporary context, when one tries to analyze the idea about women from previous decades being an audience and not the crew of a film industry, one wants to question and ask: why were women only an audience or, actors? Maybe there were some culturally held values and beliefs with respect to their contexts? However, with the passage of time, cultural and professional values improved. Technology began to improve and so did the mind-set of professional groups along with the audiences. Film industry has had an impression of providing first entertainment and, second education. Hence those working for the films might have had hurdles in choosing working for films as their career or vocation. At different times in the history, women in different cultural contexts have worked for certain film industries. I want to explore the idea about women and their talent in the film industry. Since I am primarily a viewer of the Bollywood industry and an occasional viewer of the Hollywood cinema, I want to compare the cultural and professional values of those who work for films in different settings. Since the course readings provided information with respect to certain cinema contexts, I wanted to add some ideas providing a comparative analysis of the women talent in diverse film settings.

Instead of relying on another power that is above her, she takes her fate into her own hands and tries to save her own home. This self reliance develops early, and can also be seen much later in her life. When she is twenty-seven, Lily learns that her husband has a secret second family. She leaves him immediately and manages to annul the marriage. Although he had taken all of her money from their joint bank account, she does not go back to her parents in Arizona or try to find another husband to take care of her. Instead, she begins preparing for her future alone. “Since I obviously couldn't count on a man to take care of me, what I needed more than ever was a profession. I needed to get my college education and become a teacher . . . the time flew by, and when both the dispensation and the acceptance letter arrived, I had enough money for a year of college” (p. 90). Instead of wondering what to do and moping about her ex-husband, Lily is practical and knows what she wants to do next. She also mentions that she cannot depend on a husband to take care of her. If she did not have to fend for

To continue, Chin’s grandma has no money, therefore in order to experience a better quality life, she is sent to live with other relatives, however many of them consider her a burden because she’s just another mouth to feed. Each time Chin moves, she experiences harsh class differences, for example in some of the homes she stays at, they have no electricity or running water. While on the other hand, other families she has stayed with have been fortunate enough to afford color television, a maid and other luxuries. Fortunately, Chin is able to overcome class stereotypes with her intelligence, which allows her to attend a prestigious high school regardless of her class ranking.

Mullen describes Lily’s situation as “Lily Bart has been predominantly framed as a tragic victim caught within the irresistible market forces of capitalism and the fatal contradictions of gender and class politics” (45). The novel, “The House of Mirth” filled with nuances of gender and class politics. Mullen points out a weakness in Lily’s character, her position in the forces of the capitalist circle. The females in the novel face the pressures from the social circle as well. Lily is a product of her culture and upbringing. Success is measured by the capital worth and how one would survive in their social class. Unfortunately, Lily didn’t have to chance to remain in her former social class circle, after trying to pay off her debts. She died the night that she received her

As she recalls back on this time by telling her daughter what she calls her Kweilin story, Suyuan describes her feeling during this horrible time as “And inside I was no longer hungry for the cabbage or the turnips of the hanging rock garden. I could only see the dripping bowels of an ancient hill that might collapse on top of me. Can you imagine how it is, to want to be neither inside nor outside, to want to be nowhere and disappear?” (22) At this point in her life Suyuan was separated from her husband who is in the military and eventually is forced to abandon her two young daughters. This aspect of Suyuan’s life parallels the life of Amy Tan’s mother. Daisy tan was also married to a military man during the Chinese Civil War and like Suyuan was forced to abandon her two daughters in Shanghai. This was an experience that would affect her mother for the rest of her life and a story she would continue to tell and never forget. The life of Amy Tan is also a parallel to the life of Jing-Mei Woo of “June”. As a young girl June was forced to play the piano and practice constantly to become the best like Amy Tan was as a child. Along with playing the piano Suyuan also had high expectations for June as far as her future. She wanted her daughter to be the best in her class and go off to medical school to become a well educated doctor, the same expectation’s Amy Tan’s mother had for her. Both daughters decided to follow their dreams and

Jing-mei realized that she was an ordinary individual and that she would not let her mother’s expectations change that. She no longer believed that she “could be anything [she] wanted to be, [rather she] could only be [herself]” (Tan 44). In using a limited, first-person point of view, Tan is able to show Jing-mei’s emotional progress of following her mother’s dreams to finally realizing her own dream.

Jing-mei’s inability to connect with her mother arises from her upbringing. Mrs. Woo pushed Jing-mei to extremes with her parenting and failed to realize the lasting trauma it had on her daughter. Jing-mei as a fragile child wants nothing more than for her “mother and father [to] adore [her]” (233). The developing girl is looking for acceptance through her parents, but Mrs. Woo does not understand the positive reinforcement required in those early stages of development. Instead

Montage of the film Mother radiates peacefully from the story, from a particular environment, from the heroes and it reaches metaphorical dimension. As we can see in the