Preview

Alhaddada By Amy Tan

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
570 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Alhaddada By Amy Tan
AlhaddadA Essay
Submitted by AL HADDAD, AHMED MOHAMED (AL HADDAD) on 9/10/2010 6:14:16 PM

Amy Tan is a daughter of a Chinese emigrant, who had a dream of going to America, to escape poverty and provide a better quality of life and education for her daughter. This dream is accomplished, providing her daughter with the right tools to become a successful writer, and she then goes and discusses her relation with her roots and heritage, through the language she is speaking now, English. She mentions her passion for language and how it is the 'tool of her trade'. She is basically sharing with us her views and opinions, about language, and how it affected or limited her possibilities in life.

Moreover, I believe the story is very deep and conceives an important message. It's not just about the language itself, but also defines relationships with parents, the cultural background and heritage. It views life …show more content…
Furthermore, she is also upset because they said her English is “broken”, “as if it were damaged and needed to be fixed”.She also stated that this limited her perception of her mother and that “her English reflected the quality of what she had to say”. Because, to express something in a wrong or imperfect way, you must be imperfect or limited in your thoughts. Amy Tan, unfortunately, did not perform well on her achievement tests, simply because her mother taught her to think in a different manner than other students. She was lead to believe, due to the strong influence from her teachers, that Asian students would be much better into engineering, accounting or anything else than an English. However, she eventually discovers the benefits of her mother's teachings and advice. Fortunately, she happens to be 'rebellious' in nature and enjoys the challenge of 'disproving assumptions', she decides to major in English and write
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Compare And Contrast Richard Rodriguez And Mother Tongue
    • 555 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Compare And Contrast Richard Rodriguez And Mother Tongue

    udwig Wittgenstein once said in his book Logico Tractatus Philosophicus ,“The limits of my language means the limits of my world.” This quotation means language has no limit, it’s something that can be translated into a wide variety. Both Amy Tan in the essay, “Mother Tongue” and Richard Rodriguez in the essay, “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” write about their struggle with their identities not only because of their race, but also the language there families speak. Amy Tan and Richard Rodriguez both struggled with there families language conflicting with the need to speak the language of society. While children they share similarities with their struggles, and they differ in their perception of the importance of maintaining their families…

    • 555 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Summary Of Mother Tongue By Amy Tan
    • 227 Words
    • 1 Page

    Summary Of Mother Tongue By Amy Tan

    The essay “Mother Tongue” describes a writer who grew up with a mother of Asian origin and the limitations created by her mother’s speech. The author, Amy Tan, defines her mother’s English as “broken” and that it created communication barriers. For example, when Tan’s mother would need to call her boss about work, she would rely on her daughter to make the phone call and use proper english. When Tan decided to go into English in college, it seemed foolish since she was more skilled in math and science. The author also mentions how not everyone’s speech is the same, but that is not a bad thing. Tan decided to start writing fiction, and write a book in a way her mother would comprehend. Though the writing was harshly critiqued, Tan knew she…

    • 227 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Hamadi By Naomi Shihab Nye
    • 181 Words
    • 1 Page

    Hamadi By Naomi Shihab Nye

    “Hamadi” by Naomi Shihab Nye is a story about a girl from Palestine named Susan, trying to adapt to life in the United States. Susan cherishes her Palestinian traditions and heritage by incorporating aspects of her culture into her American life. This is demonstrated when Saleh Hamadi shows up, “With flushed red cheeks and a sack of dates stuffed in his pocket”(Nye IL14). Dates in Palestinian culture represent prosperity and are often included in the diets of Palestinians. Although Susan is now living in the United States, she doesn’t assimilate to American culture or beliefs.…

    • 181 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Thelma and Louis by Cynthia Danga
    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Thelma and Louis by Cynthia Danga

    1. Louise is the first of the two main characters shown, at the snack bar. It is noisy, crowded and fast paced. The cameraman follows her from point to point , in this way making her the center of attention and also serving to give the viewer a good view of the snack bar. On the other hand, Thelma's kitchen is quiet and she is alone. From the onset, the viewer gets an insight into the loneliness and boredom in Thelmas life. This is further confirmed when her husband comes into the scene, acting rude and unappreciative of her. Louise is the free-spirited one - this is depicted by how she is shot in different parts of the snack bar. The viewer gets the sense that she is independent. Thelma, on the other hand is in the small kitchen and her movement are limited by that space - her kitchen. Ken, her husband, comes in, and the kitchen looks even smaller - suggesting that he overwhelms her.…

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Comparing Amy Tan's 'Bikinis And Tiaras'
    • 3392 Words
    • 14 Pages

    Comparing Amy Tan's 'Bikinis And Tiaras'

    Mother Tongue In this passage the author Amy Tan talks about the different ways people speak in America, as an example she uses herself and her mother, she tells us that one time she was giving a speech in front of a large group and she was using all this big words, and phrases like she had learned in school, but all of a sudden she remember her mother was in the audience and she started to think her speech was bad and all her words were wrong because it was an English she never spoke with her mom, because she explains to us that the English her moms speaks is very broken and very bad because of her Chinese roots, as an example she gives us a paragraph describing a story her mom told her once about a gangster that wanted to join her family, she also tells us that when she was younger she was very ashamed of her mothers broken English, which I think is very funny because I know a lot of people that go threw that problem, and hate going places were their parents have to speak English, luckily for me I didn’t encounter that problem because my mother grew up in Kansa City and learned English at a very young age, so her English has been very good all threw my childhood, the bad part was that since she knew perfect English she was able to communicate with my teachers…

    • 3392 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Analysis Mother Tongue Amy Tan
    • 307 Words
    • 1 Page

    Analysis Mother Tongue Amy Tan

    “I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say” (Tan 635). This quote gives me the idea that Amy’s mothers English was perfect to her, but imperfect to other people, calling Tan’s mothers English “broken”.…

    • 307 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Joy Luck Club Rhetorical Analysis
    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Joy Luck Club Rhetorical Analysis

    In regards to her use of diction as part of her overall style, Tan uses broken English a mother is speaking, and English with fragments of Chinese for when the daughters are speaking. For instance, Mrs. Woo lectures her daughter saying, "You never rise. Lazy to get up" and "You just not trying." This level of English allows Tan to reveal the mother's prominent Chinese heritage. This also establishes her as someone from another country who has experience working endlessly to get to where she is now. The words of the daughters are English, punctuated by Chinese. Rose Hsu Jordan, one of the American raised daughters, complained that she had been "feeling hulihudu" and that her life was "heimongmong,". These phrases translate to feeling puzzled and her life was full of fog. Her speech is a reflection of both her prevalent American mentality and her Asian roots. She weaves in and out of the two languages in a desperate need to be both part of the present and connected to the past in order to find her identity. Through her meticulously selected words, Amy Tan is able to demonstrate the difference between mother and daughter, as well as the problems with which they contend. In the parts of the novel where one of the women mediates on an event in her life, Tan almost always uses metaphysical conceits to compare something tangible to emotional matters, adding to the complexity and the appearance of their intelligence. The sentence structure is also very elaborate in these cases as opposed to when they communicate with people. An example would be this sentence: "I also beg[in] to cry again, that this [is] our fate, to live like two turtles seeing the watery world together from the bottom of the little pond," (Tan 244) the complex structure of it gives the reader a sense of despair and pity, which adds to the distressing tone of the novel. In…

    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    What Is The Main Idea Of Mother Tongue By Amy Tan
    • 197 Words
    • 1 Page

    What Is The Main Idea Of Mother Tongue By Amy Tan

    Amy Tan’s essay “Mother Tongue” Tan grew up in a home with her Chinese mother who spoke English that she considered “broken”. It was difficult for others to understand what her mother was saying. Tan then realized that when she was with her mother that she spoke English differently than she did. She was trying to figure out how her background affected her life, such as her education; but she eventually learned to except her background. At the same time Tan wanted to become a writer and she found that by spending time with her mother who again spoke “broken” English. Even though she was told that writing was her worst skill by her boss, she was determined to make it work.…

    • 197 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Amy Tan Mother Tongue Analysis
    • 760 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Amy Tan Mother Tongue Analysis

    Amy Tan’s story “Mother Tongue” starts by the affirmation that she is not a scholar of English or literature. She is just a writer and the person who understand the power of language. From Tan’s observations from her daily life, she realizes that there are different types of English that she uses. The first time Tan notices the difference is when she gives a speech on her book “The Joy Luck Club” using academic English, the one that she never uses to talk with her mother. The second time is when Tan talked using “fractured” English unconsciously with her mother when walking down the street. After that, Tan recalls her memories from her early age: the phone call for her mother to the stockbroker, the meeting with a doctor in the hospital for her mother’s CAT scan result to demonstrate her mother’s realization of “limited” English. Then Tan agrees with the idea that language spoken in…

    • 760 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Amy Tan Mother Tongue Rhetorical Analysis
    • 903 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Amy Tan Mother Tongue Rhetorical Analysis

    Within this Essay the author Amy Tan about the stereotypes that Asian Americans face in everyday society when it comes to English in the sense of an overall sense of the language and how the way the speak it is regarded as “broken” or “limited”. In the story she talks about the life she had in her childhood with her…

    • 903 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Analysis Of Mother Tongue
    • 226 Words
    • 1 Page

    Analysis Of Mother Tongue

    "Mother Tongue" written by Amy Tan, the author reveals that there's bias in spoken and written language when communicating. The speaker herself says she uses different Englishes when speaking to her Chinese immigrant mother whose second language is under developed compared to hers. Ms. Tan alternates between different events that support a change in her own awareness involving forms of English, such as when speaking to a group about her herself, she notices herself saying, '"The intersection of memory upon imagination" and "There is an aspect of my fiction that relates to..."' while confessing that this is not her daily language when conversing with her mother or husband, that it’s a language of intimacy, which I believe is to be more vulnerable…

    • 226 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Taming A Wild Tongue And Mother Tongue Essay
    • 554 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Taming A Wild Tongue And Mother Tongue Essay

    Gloria Anzaldua in How to Tame a Wild Tongue and Amy Tan in Mother Tongue both share a similar message in their essays, they argue that every single culture faces different language obstacles when learning the english language. Both struggle to develop the correct form of english, the one considered acceptable by society. Both Tan and Anzaldua teach us about their ethnic backgrounds, in an effort to better help us learn of their struggles. Amy Tan, is of asian descent, and tells us how growing up with a mother who spoke “broken english” influenced the person she became and how she approached the world. Gloria Anzaldua, considered herself a Mexican American but mainly Chicana, and she tells us of her struggle to accept her roots and to find a place where she belonged. Ultimately, this also influenced who Anzaldua came to be. The…

    • 554 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Analyzing Amy's 'Pressure To Fit In'
    • 469 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Analyzing Amy's 'Pressure To Fit In'

    She was embarrassed since they both had different heritage. She learns that she should not worry too much because at the end of the day you learn something new, like you are like American girls but inside you always be Chinese. Also, I learned that I shouldn’t be having anxiety when I having friends coming over, I shouldn’t be worried because everyone has anxiety of something bad happening. I shouldn’t be worried about the way my parents act because my background is Sri Lanka and I shouldn’t worry about how my house, clothing looks, and the food we eat. Now I understand that I should be embarrassed and understand about my heritage. In conclusion, I can relate with Amy because of her struggle to fit in and she gets worried about something going…

    • 469 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A Comparison of Two Articles
    • 1334 Words
    • 6 Pages

    A Comparison of Two Articles

    Amy Tan's mother spoke broken English, which was a strange mix of English and Chinese. A mixture that is usually portrayed comically by certain roots of media. Although in actuality, the struggles that she had to deal with because of her native home, made life difficult. The comparable Betty…

    • 1334 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    mother tongue
    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages

    mother tongue

    In Tan’s only life, she gets a lower English score on SAT because her mother tongue limited her ability to find out the connection between those English words. Her teacher thought she should study math or engineering since her math score is better than her English score. Amy Tan says the purpose of her writing is to let more people understand her mother tongue. She ends the passage by saying that she has already published a book, “The Joy Luck Club”, and her mother thinks that book is “very easy to understand”(259).…

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More

Related Topics