Mingdong Chen
Freshman Composition
Ms. Nargiza
Matyakubova
27 September 2013
Literacy Analysis
Overcoming Obstacles in
Life
In the story “Mother Tongue,” Amy
Tan utilizes the literary techniques of flashback to demonstrate her mother’s
difficult experiences of speaking “broken English” in her daily life and
receiving unequal treatment of cultural discrimination in society because of
the fact of being capable of speaking fluent English. And how her mother’s
great perseverance of continuously speaking the so-called “broken English”
builds up her strong confidence prepared for becoming a successful writer. She
also describes her captivation to the power of language, how she wields the
languages in the different places with different people she meets, and how she
is influenced by her mother’s “broken English “to create her ways of looking at
the things, expressing things, making sense of the world. All of these help her
to pave a road with volition to be a successful writer. The author demonstrates
her mother’s and her capability to overcome the daily obstacles in their life and
how her dream eventually comes true.
The “fractured English”
does not completely block the expression of a person’s thoughts. In the story, the
author depicts how her mother speaks the so-called “fractured English” to
communicate with her stockbrokers, the doctor, and the servers in restaurants,
yet she oppositely receives educational discrimination because her impeccable
broken English created by her background of being born a foreign country and
receiving different education of languages. This is shown when people
designedly pretend not to understand what she expresses or pay less attention
to her, the author create this point across about cultural racism without
displaying any resentment or directly pointing out the racism (Tan par 8, 13).The
author states “and I was sitting there red-faced and quiet, and my mother, the
real Mrs. Tan, was shouting at her boss in her impeccable broken English.”(Tan
par 12). This suggests that her mother Mrs. Tan is not perfectly limited to
expressing what she wants to say to the boss because of the lack of fluent English.
She does not shrink back but bravely stands up to her stockbroker’s irresponsibility.
By doing that, she takes responsibility for her behaviors; she does not flinch
in the front of the obstacle. She wants to show her self-respect instead of afraid
to be looked down by others and keeping silent to the stockbroker. By showing
that, the author realizes that her mother’s “limited English” does not
completely limit her mother’s daily communication at all, that is how her
mother overcomes the difficulties no matter how great they are and strongly influences
the author’s perception of other people who speak ‘broken English” like her
mother and of attitude to her mother, the author used to be ashamed of her
mother’s “broken English” and red-faced when her mother shouts at the boss with
impeccable English. It is what her mother’s perseverance and
self-responsibility profoundly affect the author’s later working attitudes
toward writing major, which makes her keep going on her dream of writing. Nowadays,
she understands her mother’s situation perfectly and helps out her mother in
order for her to receive the right attention from others. By doing that, the
author takes responsibility for her mother learnt from her mother.
Using of different types of
languages in different places is the progress on utilization of languages. The
author becomes aware of this phenomenon when she is giving a speech about her
published book named the Joy Club, her mother is in the audience, and she
realizes that she is using the academic language she learnt from the school, a
language is totally different from that one used to communicate with her mother
in the family (Tan par 3). The other example is shown when the author is bargaining
the price of the favorite furniture by saying “not waste money that way.”(Tan
par 4). Those events show the author’s skillful use of languages with different
people has made lots of progress after hard working on writing and she becomes
gradually fascinated by the language in daily life. Since her former boss
considers that the writing is her worst skill of all, she does not retreat by
her boss’s despised opinion that she could not write as if her mother does not
shrink back by “broken English”. So she finally gets great progress in use of
languages which helps her writing skills develop better influenced by her
mother’s “broken English”. She wants to show she can do what her mother does. That
is also how the author deals with use of the languages and achieves her goal by
overcoming the obstacle of writing skills. In other words, her mother’s
attitudes toward “broken English” help the author to develop her skillful use
of languages.
Change From the pre-med to
English. The author once mentions that her math skill is better than her
writing skill in school, and then she decides to become a freelance writer
while her boss tells her that she could not write (Tan par 18). However she still
goes on to write her fiction because of fascination toward the language, she
does what she believes she can do it with confidence learnt from her mother as
if her mother can bravely speak “broken English” with confidence. She does not
follow the expectation that people want her to be an account manager because of
her talents towards the math. It is what her mother’s confidence toward “broken
English” shapes her ambition toward writing skill. Later with her mother as an
influenced blasting fuse, the author is determined to write her own stories for
those people who have same experiences as her mother’s situation; which makes
those people with “broken English” or “limited English” get a realization that
they are not alone in this foreign society and encourages them to bravely
confront “broken English” in positive way, it also makes others understands and
respect those “broken English”-speaking people in a better way. The author states
“I later decided I should envision a reader for the stories I would write, and
the reader I decided upon was my mother.”(Tan par 20). This suggests that the author’s
mother behavior deeply influences her to go on her writing habit, so her mother
continuously speaks “broken English” as a good example to make the author
continuously work on her writing major, thus her mother plays an essentially significant
role in the author’ career of writing to help her to overcome the challenges of
writing skills to be a successful writer in the later days.
Similarly in the story
named “A Passion for English”, a girl named Marit who was born in Netherland,
she also had trouble in studying English at her age of seventeen. She had a job
at a fast food restaurant while she studied in London, and she often made many
mistakes at her job because of her “limited English” like Amy’s mother
encountered. She did not understand the customers. For example, one day in
restaurant, her supervisor said, “Please mop the floor!” Marit swept the floor
instead! She needed to practice speaking English more. So Marit got tired of
speaking English and listening English, she spent more time with her Dutch
friends. Finally she made a strict promise to herself that she could only see
her Dutch friends once a week, she would speak more English. Marit moved to a
college in United States at the age of nineteen. At first, the classes were hard
for her, she was not good at both reading and writing in English, however she
went to the Writing Center every day; she bravely asked the tutors many confusing
questions, so her English was gradually improved with the help of tutors and
herself. Finally, Marit graduated four years later, she was very proud, she was
fluent in English! The college gave her a job as an English teacher. Today,
Marit tells her English students, “hard work and passion pay off!
In conclusion, both characters
named Mrs. Tan from “Mother Tongue” and Marit from “A Passion for English” have
same hard times during the processing of learning English as second language,
and Amy Tan has struggle for her career of writing, however three of them never
give up confronting the challenges, they understand that the sustained handwork
for their dreams will pay back in one day. Mrs. Tan dares to communicate with
others with her “broken English”, Amy Tan finally becomes a famous American
writer, and Marit graduates from her college and becomes English teacher in the
end, therefore they all obtain the gains of their dreams. So we need to be the
capable of overcoming the daily obstacles and coming true the dreams.
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