The Gift Of The Magi Analysis

In the sixth short story. ‘On Her Knees’, Winton explores the relationship between a mother and son and focuses on the key issue of Sacrifice. The mother has taken a job below her standing to pay off debt from a now distant husband and to allow her son to go to university so they can experience a better life. Winton invites the audience to consider the mother’s sacrifice by utilising the son’s point of view of how he feels about his responsibilities into account of his mother’s new job. The son often helps his mother at her new job and when he isn’t helping he is ‘stewed with guilt’ (pg 101). Consequently, the guilt of his mum’s sacrifice has put an enormous amount of pressure on him, as if he might fail her if he doesn’t proceed to do well at university. Winton’s use of character development to present the theme of sacrifice, invites the audience to consider the value behind the sacrifices we make for the people we love and care for. Unlike this short story, ‘On Her Knees’, ‘Abbreviation’ and ‘Damaged Goods’ can be seen as

The German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, once said: “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.” Li-Young Lee’s poem titled “A Story” poignantly depicts the complex relationship between a father and his son through the boy’s entreaties for a story. He employs emotional appeals as well as strategic literary devices to emphasize the differing perspectives that exist between father and son. Through shifting points of view, purposeful structure, and meaningful diction, Lee adds depth and emotion to the love shared by the two characters and illuminates a universal theme of present innocence and changing relationships over time.

In the short story “Two Kinds”, Amy Tan uses the narrator’s point of view to share a mother's attempt to control her daughter's dreams and ambitions. Tan`s short story is an example of how differing personalities cause struggles between a parent and child. Children often fall victim to a parent trying too hard or expectations being too high, and in the case of "Two Kinds," we see Jing Mei’s mother trying to live her life through that of Jing Mei. The outcome of her mother’s actions soon leads the narrator into feeling tension within herself, and between herself and her mother.

In Arlie Russell Hochschild’s, “Love and Gold,” she depicts the economic influences that turn choices of mothers in Third World countries into a precondition. Similarly, in Toni Morrison’s, Sula, a recurring theme of the struggle between independence, the ability to choose, and doing what’s best for others, or coerced decisions, is imminent throughout the entire novel and revolved around the main character, Sula. Often times the factor that weighs down choice is responsibility. Choices are seemingly infinite until you factor in what choices will affect which people and why. Both mothers and caregivers have to put their dependent before themselves, therefore limiting their

Amy Tan’s A Pair Of Tickets is a story concerning family and roots. June May, like the author herself, was a Chinese born in USA and grew up with an American background culture, whereas her mother grew up in China and then immigrated to America. Looking at the repeated words, we discussed that one there are many words such as mother, sister, father and Aiyi. Most of the characters in this story belong to one family, June May’s family. It suggests to us that the tale is about relations and where we stand in our family. Even Aiyi brings practically her whole family to see her brother and niece. This is also one of the stronger traits of the Chinese cultures where there are many family occasions.

     In contrast to these fairly pessimistic views on love, the author describes an instance in which a couple found true love. Mel tells an anecdote of an old couple that was admitted to the emergency room after a very bad car accident. The two people were wrapped up in full body casts, and as a result they could not see each other. Mel noticed that the old man was very sad, even

The main reason for the huge crack in the mother-daughter relationship is due to the joint culture that they share and their conflicting opinions on their joint cultures (Parini 294). Communication problems with their mothers, in Tan’s writings, are due to the daughters of Chinese mothers wanting to be more American than Chinese (Tan The Opposite of Fate…. 22). Mothers who have immigrated to America face language barriers and feel the pressure of their new culture (Wiener 22). To a Chinese American daughter, not only does the Chinese mother humiliate the daughter, but traditions that tie back to their past are also humiliating to them (Parini 292). After the death of her father, Tan’s relationship with her mother decreased and caused her to become more rebellious to her mother’s good intentions (Angel 26-27).

In order to pick up the slack of the other parent, both authors make sacrifices to ensure their children’s needs are met. Edelman feels like she was expected to reduce her work hours instead of her husband because of the gender roles forced upon parents in society today. Edelman became angry with the fact that she felt pressured to prioritize her husband’s career and give up her own career to care for their child. Edelman states “...there was something vaguely unsettling about feeling that my choice hadn’t been much of an actual choice”(51). Edelman also angrily states that the reason she was forced to give up her career was because “...he was ‘the husband’ and…his career took precedence...”(54). Edelman is angry at the fact that society made her believe her career was inferior to her husband’s. Bartels also makes sacrifices for his family. Bartels makes the sacrifices to take pressure off of his wife, who is constantly running their children around to daycare and

Every person in their lifetime will encounter love. Love is a necessary evil in our lives. Using the moral lense to analyze the short stories “The Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson and “A Bolt of White Cloth” by Leon Rooke, we see that love cannot exist without evil. The characters of the stories all encounter evil through love by means of relationships, goodwill, as well as inanimate objects.

One of the comparisons between the stories is the fact that the primary character, which is also the protagonist, has made incredible efforts in trying to gain the love and the expectations of their love lady, and mainly focused upon especially toward which he places all his emotions

Lindo was arranged to marry Tyan-yu. While the marriage was short-lived, Tyan-yu constantly lied to Lindo, and Tyan-yu’s mother treated Lindo like an object to be bartered between families. Lindo experiences depression being trapped in this lifestyle, so she decides to flee to America in order to escape it. When reminiscing on her marriage Lindo says, “I had no choice, now or later. That was how backward families in the country were. We were always the last to give up stupid old-fashioned customs” (Tan ). Similar to the mother in the beginning, Tan creates appeal to pathos, forcing the reader to sympathize with Lindo. The reader’s sympathy to Lindo allows Tan to expand on the larger issue of sexism, creating an emotional and educational tone in order to coax the reader into, again, understanding the true scale of sexism. Tan drilling this larger idea of sexism into readers changes the reader’s perspective. With new perspective, readers notice the need for change to establish equality between both sexes. Therefore, Tan is using her writing as a tool for a deeper subject: exciting change within the world, and thus, exemplifying Jong’s words.

We live in a society that has increasingly stomped on love, depicting it as cruel, superficial and full of complications. Nowadays it is easy for people to claim that they are in love, even when their actions say otherwise, and it is just as easy to claim that they are not when they really are. Real love is difficult to find and keeping it alive is even harder, especially when one must overcome their own anxieties and uncertainties. This is the main theme present in Russell Banks’ short story “Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story,” as well as in “The Fireman’s Wife,” written by Richard Bausch. These narratives, although similar in some aspects, are completely different types of love stories.

Even though there is no father figure the main male figure is a successful rice merchant that is elderly and walks with a cane and who has a normal family. While it seems like this is a strong male figure in the story he is later easily tricked first by the son and then a second time by the mother. The female character, on the other hand, is a widowed mother who sews silk kimonos and whose head bobs “like the heads of the birds hunting for fish” (Snyder 6). In the beginning of the story the mother seems as if she struggles to support her family and is unable to motivate her son to do something with his life.

The mother was akin to a doll; she was beautiful, fragile, and unargumentative. Her submissive personality type made her a commodity; she was valued not for achievements or usefulness, but for her perfect behavior and classic beauty. The way she dressed and ate made her the last of the true aristocrats, or as Naoji describes, the “genuine article” (4)  and she had high sign-exchange value in herself.  But after the death of her husband, Kazuko’s father, it is clear that she had little practical skill, a fact even Kazuko admits. “Mother understands less of money matters than a child... “ (17). “Naoji and I had taken advantage of her to grow up without concerning ourselves about anything. Now Mother no longer had any money” (20). This shows that the

The time periods that each text is set in varies and it is therefore interesting to note that this does not change the fundamentals, we are prepared to make sacrifices for love. All the characters were forced by restrictions of the time to make difficult decisions and in these cases they were willing to give their lives, either physically or emotionally, for their love. It shows the extremity of love, that it is worth more to these literary