...Complications of the ‘Mother/ Daughter’ relationships” Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” (1978) is a short story; single sentence of advice a mother imparts to her daughter. Her daughter only twice interrupts the mother to ask a question and defend herself. The advice is meant to be useful but it is also demeaning. It seemed to be meant to help her daughter to have a productive life but also to scold her at the same time. In general, a mother tends to think highly of their daughters and wants to teach them all of the important aspects of life. The reality of the matter is that a Mother can only teach her child from her own experiences, weather the experiences are positive or negative. This is why I feel that “Girl”, shows the various ways that a relationship between a mother and daughter can be complicated. A mother’s womanhood, self-esteem, vulnerability and education all plays a major roles on how she instructs her daughter. The online resource enotes.com, “Girl: Introduction”, states that Jamaica Kincaid was born Elaine Potter Richardson in 1949. Native of Antigua, in the British West Indies, but changed her name when she started writing because her family disliked her career choice. She went to New York at the age of 17, taking a job as a nanny. During this time she met New Yorker columnist George S. Trow, who eventually helped her publish in the magazine. Much of Kincaid’s work deals with the ramifications of Antigua’s history as a colony of Great Britain. Like all of Kincaid’s...
Words: 1202 - Pages: 5
...kind” by Amy Tan the mother whom is a Chinese immigrant wishes that her first generation American daughter accomplish everything she couldn’t and even wishes that her daughter becomes a prodigy. This hope to acquire the American dream bring tension in the mother and daughter relationship and she in between these two kind of dreams her mothers dream for her and her own dreams. Also, this writing emphasizes the relationship of an immigrant mother and her Chinese American daughter and the tension cause of the American culture that clashes with mother Chinese culture and leads into miscommunication. Also, what might seem like the mother want...
Words: 1224 - Pages: 5
...them make their own decisions. II. Body A. Jing-mei’s early life, works , later years of life 1. Jing-mei mother persists with piano 2. Jing-mei can be a prodigy too. 3. “Only one kind of daughter, obedient daughter.” B. Dee’s early life, works, later years of life. 1. Dee’s education 2. Dee’s considered herself as cultured 3. Dee is selfish and egotistical character with a superficial understanding of her inheritance. III. Conclusion A. Analytical summary 1. Jing-mei and Dee early life 2. Jing-mei and Dee works 3. Jing-mei and Dee Later years B. Thesis reworded C. Conclusion Statement. Although mother-daughter conflicts are to be expected, the central conflict in the aforementioned relationship is a battle of wills between Jing-mei and her mother and Dee and her mother. For example, even though Dee's mother believes that quilts are for everyday use, Dee believes that they are cultural artifacts that must be preserved. Dee in “Everyday Use” and Ms. Johnson, her mother have major conflicting views that are similar to the identity conflicts that Jing-mei and her mother have. We observe moments of disappointment in both short stories. In “Two Kinds”, Amy Tan describes the numerous attempts that her overly ambitious Chinese mother made to propel her to stardom. Those attempts repeatedly despite the high expectations of her mother. Efforts to make her beautiful failed; instead of...
Words: 1456 - Pages: 6
...this is a mother, daughter relationship going on. I say that because most of things being said by the mother are things that usually only a mother would tell her daughter. The speaker in the story is the mother and the listener in the story is the daughter. In the story the mother is giving plenty of advice and telling the daughter what is appropriate and what is not. I can tell that all the information the mother was giving was too much for the daughter to take in because the daughter did not really say much at all while the mother was lecturing her. The life being described in the story “Girl” is really loose and care free which is why the mother is being strict on the daughter. The location is important because that is where most of the things that the mother is warning the daughter about are happening. I somewhat sensed that about the location in the story when the mother said “On Sunday try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming”. This quote showed me that there is something that the mother does not want the daughter to experience in that location. The advice the mother is giving in the story “Girl” is strict and controlling. The mother is not suggesting that the daughter take the advice, she is actually demanding that the daughter listen to her and take the advice than suggesting that she do so. An example would be when the mother says “Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap”. The few things that the daughter says in...
Words: 488 - Pages: 2
...shared by mother and daughter in those Chinese-American families are not something to be proud of, but rather something that causes embarrassment on one side or the other, and often on both sides” (Xu 13). With various interwoven events happening among these four Chinese immigrant families, the conflicts and misunderstandings between mothers and daughters seem to be the guideline throughout the whole novel. Amy Tan uses stories narrated by the mothers and daughters to display their daily contradictions and their inner thoughts, which are the mothers’ strong desire to control their daughters’ fate; contradicting opinions on interracial relationships and identity crises. All these “battles” could be found both in these four daughters’ childhood, and in their adulthood as well. The Chinese mothers try so hard to pass on their culture and instill Chinese character, but their efforts are resisted strongly by their daughters to different degrees. The daughters try to make their mothers accept ways of life ingrained with American features, which is also insufferable to mothers. The greatly different family backgrounds, different ways of thinking and identity crisis between these two generations contribute a lot to their contradictions, as well as generation and cultural gaps. Although the author provides a vivid description of the conflicts between the two generations, “Amy Tan’s special accomplishment in this novel is not her ability to show us how mothers and daughters hurt each...
Words: 1559 - Pages: 7
...whether a mother should press her child to be something big or whether the child should do the things it wants to do. The story takes place in the United States of America in the 1950s. The perspective in the story is seen from a first person narrator. The family is working class because they cannot afford a piano but they have a TV that not a thing everyone had in the 1950s. The narrator of the text is a girl named Ni Kan. She is nine years old in the start of the text. Her family comes from China but she lives in the USA with her mother and stepfather. In the start of the text Ni Kan´s relationship to her mother is fine because she agrees with her mother. She wants to be famous like her mother wants her to be. She tries a lot of different things like being ballerina girl or an actor. And at the night the mother asks a lot of question to Ni Kan. But one day Ni Kan, has had enough of it and do not want to do those things anymore and thus defy her mother's will. Form that day on the relationship to her mother gets bad. The relationship becomes even worse because Ni Kan still don’t wants to do the stuff her mother wants so her mother force her to play the piano and one day she had to play a concert. The concert when really badly and her mother was very disappointed over Ni Kan. The next day Ni Kan´s mother still wants her to continue playing the piano but Ni Kan refuse to do it. They start a big argument and Ni Kan says: “I wish I were dead! Like them.” After that her mother gave...
Words: 723 - Pages: 3
...story "Girl", shows family togetherness and the love of a mothers like raise her daughter in order to teach her how she could carry out the duties when she will be an adult woman. Still, the story shows a complex relation of mother-daughter in this monologue story. Moreover, the story shows a mother, who always is giving orders to her daughter all the time, since the beginning to the end of the story. However, the mother’s character is of the a smart woman, with high command over her daughter, and very worried about to prepare her daughter very well at all household chores. In the story "Girl", stands the character of a smart mother who devotes much of her time to teach her daughter the main activities that she must learn in order to succeed in household chores, as well as the behavior that she should to take on the street, also how to behave as a woman and not a man: for example, when her mother says: “don’t eat fruits on the street”; “on Sundays try walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming”, also she tells her daughter “don’t squat marbles-you are not a boy, you know”(307). Furthermore, the dominant character of the mother is constantly sees reflected through the whole story because of the large amount of commands that she gives to her daughter as a teaching and illustrations in relation to the household chores. For example, the mother is concerned about teaching her daughter how she should set a table for dinner with an important...
Words: 564 - Pages: 3
...out to me was the “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan because in the story it was the mother that coming from another country had hopes and dreams and not thinking in what her daughter wanted was determined to make her own hopes come true. As it says in the beginning of the story “My mother believed you could be anything in America” The mother believes that working hard you can be anything you want to be here in America. The mother had very high hopes that her daughter would become successful and had many dreams to make that happen. The narrator uses her mom to portray the “American Dream” theme, because throughout the story her mother wanted her to do many things. For example when her mother put her into beauty training school and at first she liked it but after also trying other things she realized that she just wanted her parents to accept her. “In all of my imaginings, I was filled with a sense that I would soon become perfect. My mother and father would adore me … I would never feel the need to sulk for anything” I think that many people come to america looking for that “American Dream” dreams of becoming rich and successful. Another thing I got from this story is how all those dreams the mother had affected the relationship with her mother. The narrator's mother only wanted her daughter to be successful in life, but by doing that she was starting problems with her daughter, The mom did not realize how her daughter really felt. “ after seeing my mother’s disappointing face once again...
Words: 822 - Pages: 4
...Tan in 1989. The story brings up the themes parenting and relationship between a mother and her daughter. Also about the difficulties for a Chinese mother to raise an Americanised daughter. The main character is a Chinese-American girl called Jing-mei. The mother has great ambitions for her daughter and believes "that you could be anything you want to be in America". The daughter likes the American lifestyle while her mother wants to keep the Chinese way of lifestyle and living. Summary The story takes place in America. Jing-mei's mother has arranged piano lessons for Jing-mei, because she wants her to become a prodigy. However Jing-mei feels like she is trying to make her into someone she is not. Jing-mei lies about practice times and she does only what she has to do during the lessons. At a talent show she plays the piano awful because of her lack of participation in the piano lessons. Still her mother insists on continuing the piano lessons. Jing-mei screams but her mother drags her to the bench to play. On Jing-mei's thirtieth birthday her mother gives her the piano as a present Characters - Jing-mei Jing-mei and her mother are struggling to accept and understand each other. Jing-mei wants be her self and is obsessed with the American idea of being anyone you want. She does not want to follow her mothers’ footstep, but in stead make her own. She won’t change just to make her mother feel proud or happy. She says, “I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t...
Words: 859 - Pages: 4
...father, mother son and daughter. The choice of the time is preferable because, at this time the parents are free from work and can spare some little time from their busy schedules and have a meal with the family. The time is also convenient in that the family will enjoy their meal after which, they can do some catch up on what has been going on in their life’s. To add to this, choice of this time gives the advantages of there being many families at the restaurant and hence one finds it easy to select one for the observation. On arrival at the restaurant, it is the lady who chooses a table and everyone else follows. The man of the family pull the chair for the wife as the children helps themselves out. The table setting has 4 chairs. The father sits directly opposite the mother. The family has a daughter and a son. From the point, the family entered the restaurant, it is clear that the daughter and father have a liking of each other and no wonder they sit next to each other at the dinner table. On the other hand, the son seems to be extremely quit and barely says a word which is quite the opposite of what the sister is like. Just like the son, the mother sits watching at how the husband is heavily engaged in a heated debate with the daughter, who seems to be taking a ‘NO’ for an answer. At one point, the mother scolds her but to the contrary the father seems to like what the daughter is doing. The mother asks the girl in a bit of a bitter tone, “Why can’t you be like your...
Words: 1045 - Pages: 5
...should be doing or even acting. The mother who is giving her daughter advice and commands in order for her not to become a “slut”. The tone is straight forward but also a little rough so her daughter could be afraid of committing inappropriate acts. But also this passage gives advice mostly in a way of a list, things the girl need to accomplish. As a reader you can also sense how between the mother and daughter there is tension. The girl might not be disagreeing with the mother but because she's not saying anything and the conversation is stiff just her mother talking seem there is conflicting feelings....
Words: 473 - Pages: 2
...One of the main big ideas in the novel is relationships between mother and daughter. In the novel, all of the main characters are four mothers and four daughters, and in the plot, all of the characters show a relationship and a connection between each other. For example, when Rose Hsu saw her brother, Bing, fell down on a cliff in the beach, her mother, An-mei, punishes her by going back to the beach and finding him. The next day, Rose and An-mei couldn’t find him at the beach, which means that Bing is dead. Then, Rose learns her lesson from her mother which is to have fate in trying everything. An-mei also said, “You must think for yourself, what you must do. If someone tells you, then you are not trying,” (130) and she meant that Rose should...
Words: 445 - Pages: 2
...they were African American, two completely different heritages but the mother’s showed their daughters values in life, the way they each looked at it. Never can a child agree with the way a mother tries to raise a young lady, until they realize for themselves, it was all for a good cause. In the short story "Two Kinds" Ni Kan's mother had values for her daughter with high expectations. She wanted Ni Kan to have great success in prodigy, she also wanted her to be great and perfect at everything she ever did. Her daughter always told her she was not a genius but her mother gave up on her. She insisted she was perfect at something and had her try many different talents like, child actress, intellectual tests clipped from famous magazines, and finally it hit her, her daughter would be professional piano player. Ni Kan’s mother was going to do anything in order for her daughter to be the best piano player and exchanged her cleaning, Mr. Chow, Ni Kan’s piano instructor’s, home just so her daughter could learn to play the piano. Ni Kan thought her mother was just trying to make her life miserable as a kid but she was not. Ni Kan did not notice this until she was older and her mother died, she was trying to teach her a lesson in which she thought was like the American dream, with hard work and luck she can be anything she wanted to be. In the short story “Everyday Use” Mama gave her daughter Dee or “Wangero” as she changed her name, everything she could. Dee was the oldest and Maggie...
Words: 803 - Pages: 4
...how do you as a mother manage to enable a good relationship between mother and daughter? Do we manage to satisfy ourselves and the way we are living our family life, or do we all need some kind of an accept in life to manage living a perfect family life? What happens when our family life is torn between? In the present society we are having problems being true to ourselves and our fellow human beings which often causes conflicts. This is exactly some of the main subjects The Dress is dealing with. We are introduced to the feminine third-person narrator named Rachel, who is accusing her sister Flora for having stolen her new dress, bought for the occasion of their mothers’ birthday. You could say that the relationship between Rachel and Flora is very common for sisters at almost the same age. In a way relationships between sisters or siblings will always be influenced by jealousy. The fight about the dress is influenced by the indirectly jealousy between the sisters. As mentioned in the quotation below it becomes some kind of an occupation for Flora having the dress, wearing the dress and feeling the dress. And it also reflects her rising jealousy towards Rachel. “It made her feel taller, braver, cleverer, and Rachel was all those things already” One could say that there is a gap among Rachel and Flora which causes the dress and as the story continues the gap among them are getting bigger and bigger. As they are sitting in the restaurant celebrating the mothers’ fortieth year...
Words: 1175 - Pages: 5
...The joy luck club The movie is about the complex mother –daughter relationships of four Chinese families whose roots from the past intertwine within the present causing conflicts and misunderstandings in their lives. It’s also a movie about power of family. There is a problem with communication in nearly every single account .One reason for this is the mothers struggle with English and the daughters has a very slim grasp on the Chinese dialect of their mothers.so they cannot grasp the full meaning what they are trying to say to each other. Other problem is due to cultural clash. Mothers are still very much influenced by a culture that the daughters have never experienced. In Chinese culture the parents have a strong bond with their children but don’t like to express their love and don’t openly communicate to their children and they are strict. They do not habitually explain everything, Verbal message is indirect; one talks around the point. The mothers expect their daughters to obey their elders and so learn by obedience. The daughters born and raised in America do not understand or care about the old customs and are embarrassed by their traditionalism and other somber attitude. Daughters think of themselves as American and adopt the culture that surrounds them. This difference makes it hard to really communicate. From the perspective of mothers, a mother passes on her strengths and weakness to her daughters. She has a responsibility to provide them with a good future, keep...
Words: 514 - Pages: 3
