Published in 2007 in Toronto, Jen Sookfong Lee’s novel, The End of East, presents the multigenerational struggles of the Chan family in Vancouver. The novel intertwines the hardship of the first generation with the confusion and chaos of the third generation. The male dominance that is executed by Shew Lin in The End of East has a domino effect through the three female generations.
The gender preference is introduced through the first generation by Shew Lin. Shew Lin has expectations of what the role of a woman should be in a family. Shew Lin believes that the responsibility of whole house is put on her to help her son, as the daughter-in-law, Siu Sang, does not do any of the housework. “ I did not work so hard to keep my husband and son
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Shew Lin is always calling Siu Sang useless as Siu Sang does not do any cooking which displeases Shew Lin and makes her believe Siu Sang will ruin the family, as it has been, “two months and [she] has proven to be completely useless” (133). Further, Shew Lin believes that the communication issue between Seid Quan and Pon Man can be solved only if Siu Sang would have a boy. “Something medicinal, to help my grandson grow strong” (137), Shew Lin did not even make a general statement of the sex of the baby; she demands it to be a boy. Shew Lin believes that Siu Sang is only brought to produce a boy and leading Siu Sang to believe the same, “She can call her daughter-in-law useless if she still has not done what they brought her out to do, if her husband and son still …show more content…
The book’s title gives a hint as it shows that there will be an ending of some sort of east, and with the content of the book the east is the culture and past history of the family. The end is the male dominance that Shew Lin presented as to what women should do and the preference for boys, and Sammy does not share similar views, so that is the end part. Being a third generation who does not have any knowledge about what Shew Lin wanted from her family let’s Sammy do what pleases her and she does not care how it affects her family. Her mom does ask, “…Why you can’t finish school” (59), and that leaves Sammy explaining, “school means nothing” (59) Moreover, before Shew Lin had passed away she had a feeling that Sammy will be the different one type of girl. Sammy was different than her sisters and that was demonstrated when she left her sister’s wedding to go to a bar with a boy whom she just meant. It was mentioned that Sammy does stop to get her cigarettes or go to bars for drinks, and she does not have the fear of what her mother might think of her as Siu Sang did before. Siu Sang has given up on changing Sammy, as she does not scold her the way Shew Lin did or the way Siu Sang acted before. In addition, Sammy is also afraid of expressing her feeling most of the time. She does not tell Matt she is afraid, “I don’t tell him that I am afraid, that the years stretch ahead of me, seemingly
1. This exposition that includes details about Sammy is vital to the story’s development because this part shows us who Sammy is as a person. The exposition allows us to see what his opinions are in life and what he believes in. We are able to see his personality traits and his social class in relation to others. The author, Updike, illustrates how Sammy is slightly insecure and immature about approaching the girls and instead spends time with his coworkers discussing them. The exposition shows how he is longing for something different in life, to move away from working in the same store just to please his parents.
The Chinese-American struggles is the most prominent theme within Fae Myenne Ng’s book, Bone. Fae displays her personal experience through a first person point of view of growing up in the United States from a very young age in the book. She takes the reader with her throughout her journey — starting from the very beginning. The main character within the book is a little girl named Leila, the protagonist, in which the story is surrounded in Chinatown, San Francisco. Growing up in this setting made it difficult for her to have a normal childhood.
The theme of a story is a very important factor when depicting the impact the story has. Theme of a story is the comprehension of general message or idea that is conveyed throughout a literary work. As a story progresses the theme is often conveyed regularly and emerges in varied ways. Sometimes a story can have more than one theme portrayed within it. In the story “A&P” there is more than one theme present in the story.
“A&P” by John Updike is a short story expressing the issues of female objectification and degradation in society by following a young A&P employee’s views (Sammy) as they change through experiences second hand. Sammy goes from stereotyping objectifier to a form of a public defender, standing up for girls who can’t really do so for themselves. Sammy initially characterizes and describes all of the people in the store based on their looks and his initial opinion of them, rather than waiting to make judgements based on their personality, or not at all. He is very critical of looks, and is judgmental about why and how they look or act the way they do.
In the book Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang, the author talks about the stories of her grandmother and mother as well as herself during their journeys as women in China. The book discusses how gender roles, political ideology, and economic ideology in China change over time. During the entirety of Chinese history, many changes and continuities transpired and had crucial impacts on China. However, a great amount of change occurred during the time period from the 1900s to present day. These changes and continuities incorporate happenings in areas concerning the treatment of women, political structure, and economic capacity.
Gender Expectations in Different Cultures “Women are supposed to cook and do house chores… Women should be responsible for raising children… Men should tell women what they should do… Men are superior than women.” Gender expectations are evident in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and the society in Korea. Due to their different culture and lifestyle, The Youngers, the African American family, in A Raisin in the Sun have gender expectations that are different from the those in Korea.
It came to dominate my understanding of the discussion on the social and historical scene and to restrict my ability to participate in that discussion.(444) If we go back and use the reference again of the electronic tool we can see the struggle of being at home and communicating with her family and having an influence of capitalistic viewpoints and living the life of a capitalist, then immediately having to communicate in a different language at school and being surrounded by socialistic views and living the life of a socialist. Her thoughts were constantly flip-flopping and this became very frustrating for her. If we bring all these struggles into one main purpose, Min-Zhan Lu’s mother falls into silence two months before her death and Min-Zhan Lu attempts to “fill up that silence with words that I have since come to by reflecting on my earlier experience as a student in China.(437) The struggles that she faced growing up in China as a student and her past experiences have really helped her overcome life obstacles and develop her as a better reader and writer.
Jin is faced with being one of the very few Asians at his Junior High School, while everyone else is American. Of course Jin is going to feel out of sorts, especially when his teacher introduces him to the class as “Jin Jang”, and saying “He and his family moved to our neighborhood all the way from China”, when Jin’s real name is Jin Wang and his family moved from San Francisco (30). Gene Luen Yang uses this humility to display that it takes a considerable amount of open
Sammy knows that quitting his job will eventually make his life a lot worse, but he sticks to his decision because he does not like what the store has to offer him. When Sammy walks out of the store he is not only leaving behind a job, but also a rigorous state of mind related with the A&P. There are many reasons as to why Sammy quit his job. The environment of John Updike’s story “A&P” is really important as to why Sammy quit his job. Sammy describes the A&P to be very boring. The anchor store is a common unit in modern society, so the reader can understand the conformity of the setting Sammy is describing.
Tan expresses the life experiences of Chinese immigrants to the United States and attempts to depict the relationship of a mother and daughter through her significant piece of writing ‘The Joy Club’. Therefore, all these authors somehow portrayed their early struggles and their view point towards life from their literary
A&P: The Perspective of Sammy “A&P” by John Updike tells the story of Sammy, a teenage boy working at a grocery store, when he sees three girls dressed in swimsuits enter. Quickly, Sammy becomes infatuated with the leading girl whom he dubs “Queenie”. Eventually, the girls are accosted by the manager for dressing inappropriately and Sammy quits in both an act of rebellion and wanting the appreciation of the girls. All throughout the story Sammy’s sarcastic and inquisitive nature comes out leading to a distinct voice and thought process the reader follows giving the reader a very opinionated view of all the characters and action in the story.
Throughout the entire novel, the mothers and daughters face inner struggles, family conflict, and societal collision. The divergence of cultures produces tension and miscommunication, which effectively causes the collision of American morals, beliefs, and priorities with Chinese culture which
Where does the dramatic conflict in A&P become apparent? Why does Sammy quit his job? What do you understand from the conclusion of the story? ( use examples from the text) The dramatic conflict in A&P is not apparent until the last part of the story.
Mother knows best. And yet so many daughters in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club feel slighted by what the matriarchal figures in their lives have in mind for them, or rather, what they believe their mothers have in mind for them. A perfect storm of expectation, true and false, about love, about success, about being Chinese. The souring of mother-daughter relationships in The Joy Luck Club stem from unrealistic or ill conceived expectations that both parties hold for the other.
2. Asian American History and Culture : Last Kiss in Tiananmen Square The above literary work is edited by Scott Wong, David Palumbo, Cathy Schlund and Linda Trinh. Baiyun a lead character in the novel joins the pro-democracy movements to vent out frustrations.