Since the beginning of time mothers have always supported their children. Some mothers have different ways of support. In the novel ,Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom, Amy Chua’s tone for supporting her daughter is positive but also a little ironic. Amy Tan’s mother, in the novel The Joy Luck Club, has a different tone and comes across quite vicious and negative and even abusive. Two mothers with one goal, but try to reach their goals very differently.…
In the novel Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, the author is trying to convey to her readers that the people of Annawadi, India are doing anything they can to create a living and “work their way to the top”. The people who live in these poor slums are known as “Annawadians” do just about anything to make ends meet at their hut for their family. Abdul is the eldest child in his home and he gets money by buying and selling garbage to recycling plants, and also stealing iron to sell. Another character that really stood out was Asha and her son Rahul who is described as becoming a new celebrity. Asha has close connections with Politicians and Police. The author includes the main reason to why people move to this city “Mumbai is known…
In the excerpt from The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston, the purpose is finding one’s identity through the hardship of family struggle because if not, they will forever be lost. This passage shows the purpose through the acts of irony, anecdote, and imagery.…
The novel Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut depicts different periods of main character Billy Pilgrim’s life. Throughout the novel the reader follows Billy through his time as a soldier in WWII, life after, and the period where Billy thinks he lived on the planet Tralfamadore. These periods show the destructiveness of war on a person and its long-term effects after. Vonnegut actually fought in WWII and while at his war buddy’s house his wife talks about how Vonnegut and her husband were just children when they were sent to war. Vonnegut’s statement in the book, “We had been foolish virgins in the war, right at the end of childhood,” captures the quintessential idea…
Have you ever wished that someone had given you a guide on how live the right way? Jamaica Kincaid does just that in her short story, Girl. The narrative is presented as a set of life instructions to a girl by her mother to live properly in Antigua in the 1980’s. While the setting of the story is not expressly stated by the author in the narrative, the reader is able to understand the culture for which Girl was written.…
Love plays one of the largest roles in William Goldman's The Princess Bride. This story presents love in many different forms. Some characters claim their love to be true for each other, for others this is not the case. The reason love is such a major theme is that it is what sparks the interesting events in the book. Actions such as revenge and dramatic rescues are all sparked through love. Therefore love is present in almost all aspects of The Princess Bride, and is seen is both minor and major characters.…
Barbara Jordan quotes that "We, as humans beings, must be able to accept people who are different than ourselves." this quote plays a large role in many of the text included in collection one some of which included "American Flag Stands for Tolerance", "My So-Called Enemy" and "The Lottery".…
Arthur Golden wrote this novel for a purpose and this was to inform the reader about this incredible secret culture he himself had discovered whilst interviewing a famous geisha Mineko Iwasaki and it was through the effectiveness of all the elements of his style that he achieved this purpose quite sufficiently.…
I went to the musical, Little Shop of Horrors. It was a musical about a plant that was feed of of human body parts. It was an amazing musical with amazing dancing and singing. It had good and bad moments with special effects, organization and dancing or blocking.…
Consistent with much Japanese art and literature, Memoirs of a Geisha includes a great deal of nature imagery. Traditionally, Japanese art features trees, insects, and bodies of water, just as poetry (most notably the haiku) often presents images from nature as metaphors for life’s lessons. Golden’s use of natural and Japanese imagery in Memoirs of a Geisha brings his fiction in line with this tradition and gives the novel a decidedly Japanese feel. Sayuri recalls a client who once mentioned her hometown of Yoroido, and she describes her feelings: “Well, I felt as a bird must feel when it has flown across the ocean and comes upon a creature that knows its nest.” She also describes her mother’s succumbing to her illness with a simile that seems fitting for a Japanese fisherman’s daughter: “Just as seaweed is naturally soggy, you see, but turns brittle as it dries, my mother was giving up more and more of her essence.” There are countless examples of Sayuri’s use of natural or Japanese images in her descriptions of her experiences and feelings. That these are present in her memories of her early life as well as her more recent years indicates that this is a characteristic of her real self.…
It is important to understand the role of the female entertainer in Japanese culture. That is why the Geisha has a specific role. The geisha is described as a century old professional entertainer the geisha is an important part of traditional Japanese social life. Geisha are masters in the arts, trained in music, calligraphy, Sado (tea ceremony) poetry, conversation and social graces as well as three stringed instruments called Shamisen. They dress in traditional kimonos, stunning in their elegance. Basic wooden geta clogs are worn for footwear, and hair is up in bun type coiffures trimmed with metallic accessories…
Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha depicts the issue of choice in destiny. Nitta Sayuri, formerly known as Sakamoto Chiyo, has no control over that fact that she is sold from her home into a life of slavery. Fate sets Sayuri up with an unfathomable situation, but Sayuri goes against everything her culture believes to pursue a destiny she desires. Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha shows that in life, people who are faced with oppression can make the choice to take control of their own destines and receive the life they desire. When Golden shows Sayuri’s flashbacks to the day she met Mr. Tanaka shows that initially she has no control over her fate. “As a young girl I believed my life would never have been a struggle if Mr. Tanaka hadn’t torn me away from my tipsy house” (499). Sayuri is a little girl of only nine years old when she is cruelly taken from her home. She knows nothing about way of the world. Sayuri has been unexplainably taken from her parents and left to experience the cruel world alone. “The next I knew my eyes had welled up with tears so much I could scarcely see…I lay there sobbing in my misery without anyone touching me” (41). Sayuri is crying because she is all alone is this world. There is no one left that cares what happens to her and Sayuri has no idea what is in store for her. She does…
Imagine never feeling anything at all. No happiness, no excitement, no nervousness nor anxiousness. You feel absolutely nothing. That's what your life would be like without having feelings. Emotions give people's life depth and meaning. The Giver teaches us that having emotions is important to not just living, but to feeling alive.…
The Memoirs of a Geisha is a story of girl named Chiyo. Together with her sister Satsu, they were sold to slavery to pay the debts of their parents. They were sent to an Okiya (geisha house) but Satsu was not accepted so they parted ways. She was a slave of a geisha in the Okiya. But after six years she was sent to a geisha school and changed the name from Chiyo to Sayuri, to be trained with the support of a successful geisha Mameha, and making a lot of enemies in the process. While still a child, Chiyo falls in love with The Chairman since they had met and gave her snow ice cream and a penny, and wiped her tears with his handkerchief. In the post-World War II, they meet each other, in a period of changes in Japan with the occupying American forces and the country completely destroyed.…
“How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd”. -- Alexander Pope, "Eloisa to Abelard"…