Prompt #3

1991. Many plays and novels use contrasting places (for example, two countries, two cities or towns, two houses, or the land and the sea) to represent opposed forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. Choose a novel or play that contrasts two such places. Write an essay explaining how the places differ, what each place represents, and how their contrast contributes to the meaning of the work.

Be sure to not use notes, the book, commentaries or anything other than your brain!!! The best way to practice this is to just jam! Remember to entitle your essay and to mention the novel/play title in your opening paragraph! Please try to knock this out of the ball park!

Your essay needs to be loaded by Saturday, March 20th midnight. You will need to comment on 4 essays by Monday, March 22nd midnight! Think about what you are learning from each other in terms of writing craftsmanship, logic, voice. Good Luck!

Oceans Apart

In the novel The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, four Chinese women migrate to America hoping to find better lives. The novel follows each of their stories as well as those of their Chinese-American daughters. Although the novel is told from the point of view of each of the women, the novel primarily focuses on the stories of Jing-mei and her recently deceased mother Suyuan. The Joy Luck Club takes place in two distinct places – China and the United States. Each of these two settings represents the cultures and identities of the two groups of characters in the book – the Chinese mothers and the American daughters.

The main conflict in this novel is the generational and cultural gap between the mothers and their “Americanized” daughters. The daughters can barely speak or understand Chinese and can’t read or write in Chinese. Likewise the Chinese mothers can barely understand their daughters’ English. Many of the meanings and messages behind the mothers’ Chinese culture and customs are “lost in translation”, leaving the embarrassed daughters to believe that their mothers are weird and crazy.

The biggest conflict between the mothers and the daughters is between Suyuan and Jing-mei. Suyuan pushes her daughter to become a piano prodigy. Suyuan sees American as a place of infinite hope and possibility where her daughter can be extremely successful. Jing-mei, however, resents her mother’s urge for her to be the best and craves being “just average”. To Jing-mei, life in America means that she can live a decent life by simply being mediocre. Jing-mei’s resistance strains their relationship until Suyuan seems to give up on her daughter.

Jing-mei hates her mother’s efforts to make her the best without understanding why her mother pushed her. Suyuan had a very successful life in China as a high-ranking army general’s wife. She had many friends, money, and a comfortable life with her husband and newborn twin daughters. Suyuan was the only character who had a happy life in China. However, Suyuan’s life changes dramatically with the onset of World War II and the invasion of Japanese forces into China. With her husband dead and Japanese forces quickly approaching, Suyuan runs for her life. After many days of fleeing from the advancing Japanese troops, Suyuan is exhausted and unable to care for her babies; she abandons her daughters, hoping someone will find them and care for them. Suyuan is rescued but never sees her daughters again. Feeling guilt for the abandonment of her daughters, Suyuan pushes Jing-mei to live as full of a life as possible.

Throughout the novel Jing-mei slowly begins to understand her mother and her Chinese heritage through events like receiving her “life’s importance” (a jade pendent necklace). But Jing-mei is only able to fully understand her mother when she travels to China, her mother’s homeland. By finding her Chinese half-sisters and traveling to China itself, Jing-mei fully embraces her Chinese heritage.

The individualistic nature of American culture contrasts sharply with Chinese culture, which values family and the community over the individual. These conflicting viewpoints are shown through the events that take place in the two different countries, China and America. The actual places embody the culture and identity of its people, with the massive Pacific Ocean separating them, showing the vast cultural differences between these two countries.