Amy Tan Essay

Amy Tan’s essay “Mother Tongue” connects to many of us whose English is their second language specially if one’s coming from a different country than the USA. Amy Tan connects to us in such a personal level in which one starts to relate to her. Coming from a background in where language plays an important role in my life, I indeed started to relate to her in every way. Like Amy Tan, language defines the type of person we are and how it affects our lifestyle on our everyday lives. Although we come

A mother and daughter living out in San Francisco who goes through ups and down throughout the story is what Two Kinds by Amy Tan is about. In the beginning they have the same ambition and goal to reach; which is for Ni Kan (the daughter) to become a prodigy. As the story goes on, through many attempts at failing Ni Kan begins to give up, while her mother still holds on to the same goal for her to reach. Ni Kan mom tells her "Only two kinds of daughters," meaning only obedient daughters and those

Amy Tan's short story, "Mother Tongue", discusses the implied meaning of languages and how a language is not only a device for communication, but a social tool that measures an individual's worth. Growing up with an imperfect language can vary how someone's language isn't the correct way to use, one language has different ways to be spoken and it can separate, unite, or isolate those that speak the common way as others. Individuals that grow up using an imperfect English language can lead to have

1 Amy Tan 1) What is Amy Tan relationship with her home language? Throughout the whole passage, our author, Amy Tan didn’t mention any relationship she had with her home language Chinese although, in the biography, Amy Tan is said to be a bilingual fluent speaking both English and Chinese but from the short story, “Mother Tongue” Amy said she was brought up speaking English. More so, her mother also speaks English with her though, broken. Her lack of exposure to Chinese probably make her

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan looks into mother-daughter relationships. Four pairs of daughter-mothers relationships are considered whereby the mothers were born in China but migrated to America where they bore their daughters. The daughters are Americanized and tend to identify more with the American culture at the expense of their Chinese culture. Suyuan Woo experiences much difficulty in trying to explain to her daughter June or Jing-mei certain cultures of the Chinese such as Confucianism, death

In “Mother Tongue” (1990), Amy Tan writes about her life as a Chinese-American growing up speaking broken English and how that quickly changed before she wrote her first book. Amy Tan begins her article explaining that she was not a scholar of English, but rather a writer. She mentions how captivating the language is for her and then talks about a lecture she had a while back where she spoke about her writing life and her books. In that very lecture she realizes that her mother was listening the

The piano in “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan is a vital symbol to the story. The piano was first introduced when June and her mother were watching television. The narrator illustrated that the piano music on the television, “…was being pounded out by a little Chinese girl, about nine years old, with a Peter Pan haircut” (Tan 384). This closely resembles the description of June, and most importantly, the mother seemed to judges the girl has harshly as she did to June. This is evident when June argued, “maybe

Mother Tongue Amy Tan was famous Chinese - American Professional Writer who loves to read and learning languages. Amy’s work her way up in English Language and become a full time writer. She is consider one of the most successful writer not because she wrote many books or received many awards but she is able close the gap between the writer and the audience very well. While grew up different environment and ethnicity Amy's learn that people often judge you when you're different than

In her article “Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan maintains that the inability to speak the “correct” English does not reflect intelligence; however most people believe it does. Tan’s mother experience shows how society treats a non-fluent English speaker. Tan, a daughter of a Chinese immigrant family who fled China’s Cultural Revolution, used to go with her mother to stores and banks; Tan admits. “ I was ashamed of her English” (78); people ignored Tan’s mother because “the way she expressed her thoughts

In the short story, "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, a Chinese mother and daughter are at odds with each other. The mother pushes her daughter to become a prodigy, while the daughter (like most children with immigrant parents) seeks to find herself in a world that demands her Americanization. This is the theme of the story, conflicting values. In a society that values individuality, the daughter sought to be an individual, while her mother demanded she do what was suggested. This is a conflict within