a essay about mother tongue

A Summary and Analysis of Amy Tan’s ‘Mother Tongue’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Mother Tongue’ is an essay by Amy Tan, an American author who was born to Chinese immigrants in 1952. Tan wrote ‘Mother Tongue’ in 1990, a year after her novel The Joy Luck Club was a runaway success. In the essay, Tan discusses her relationship with language, and how her mother’s influence has shaped her use of English, as well as her attitude to it.

You can read ‘Mother Tongue’ here before proceeding to our summary and analysis of Amy Tan’s essay below.

‘Mother Tongue’: summary

Amy Tan begins her essay by offering her personal opinions on the English language. She recalls a recent talk she gave, when, upon realising her mother was in the audience, she was confronted with the fact that the formal standard English she was using in the public talk was at odds with the way she spoke at home with her mother. She then contrasts this with a moment when she was walking down the street with her mother and she used the more clipped, informal English she naturally uses with her mother, and her husband.

Tan calls this a ‘language of intimacy’. She points out that her mother is intelligent and reads things which Tan herself cannot begin to understand. But many people who hear her mother speak can only partially understand what she is saying, and some even say they can understand nothing of what she says, as if she were speaking pure Chinese to them.

Tan calls this clipped informal language her ‘mother tongue’, because it was the first language she learned and it helped to shape the way she saw the world and made sense of it.

Tan notes the difficulty of finding a term to describe the style of English her mother, as a Chinese immigrant to the United States, speaks. Many of the terms, such as ‘broken’ or ‘limited’, are too negative and imply her English is imperfect.

She acknowledges that when she was growing up, she was ashamed of the way her mother spoke. Her mother, too, was clearly aware of how her use of the language affected how seriously people took her, for she used to get her daughter to phone people and pretend to be ‘Mrs Tan’.

She observes that her mother is treated differently because of the way she speaks. She recounts a time when the doctors at the hospital were unsympathetic towards her mother when they lost the results of the CAT scan they had undertaken on her brain, but as soon as the hospital – at her mother’s insistence – called her daughter, they issued a grovelling apology.

Amy Tan also believes her mother’s English affected her daughter’s school results. Tan acknowledges that, whilst she did well in maths and science, subjects with a single correct answer, she was less adept at English. She struggled with tests which asked students to pick a correct word to fill in the blanks in a sentence because she was distracted by the imaginative and poetic possibilities of other words.

Indeed, Tan conjectures that many Asian American children are probably encouraged to pursue careers in jobs requiring maths and science rather than English for this reason. But because she is rebellious and likes to challenge people’s assumptions about her, Tan bucked this trend. She majored in English at college and began writing as a freelancer.

She began writing fiction in 1985, and after several false starts trying to find her own style and idiom, she began to write with her mother in mind as the ideal reader for her stories. Indeed, her mother read drafts of her work.

And Tan drew on all the Englishes , plural, that she knew: the ‘broken’ English her mother used, the ‘simple’ English Tan used when talking to her mother, the ‘watered-down’ Chinese her mother used, and her mother’s ‘internal’ language which conveyed her passion, intent, imagery, and the nature of her thoughts. When her mother told her that what she had written was easy to read, Tan knew that she had succeeded in her aims as a writer.

‘Mother Tongue’: analysis

The title of Amy Tan’s essay is a pun on the expression ‘mother tongue’, referring to one’s first language. But Tan’s language, or ‘tongue’, has been shaped by her actual mother, whose first language (or mother tongue) was not English, but Chinese.

The different forms of English that mother and daughter speak are also a product of their backgrounds: whilst Tan’s mother is a Chinese immigrant to America, Tan was born in the United States and has grown up, and been educated, in an English-speaking culture.

Much of Tan’s 1989 novel The Joy Luck Club is about daughters and their relationships with their mothers. But Tan’s interest in language, both as a cultural marker and as a way of expressing thought and personality, is also a prevailing theme of the novel.

In this respect, if the parable ‘ Feathers from a Thousand Li Away ’ acts as preface to the novel, ‘Mother Tongue’, in effect, acts as a kind of postscript. It helps us to understand the way Tan approaches and uses language within the stories that make up The Joy Luck Club .

An overarching theme of Tan’s novel is mothers emigrating to America in the hope that their daughters will have better lives than they did. This is a key part of ‘Feathers from a Thousand Li Away’, and it helps us to understand Tan’s conflicted attitude towards her mother’s use of language as explored in ‘Mother Tongue’.

Many of the mothers in The Joy Luck Club , such as Betty St. Clair in ‘The Voice from the Wall’, feel isolated from those around them, never at home in America, and hyper-aware of their outsider status, despite becoming legal permanent citizens in the country. Tan’s autobiographical revelations in ‘Mother Tongue’ show us that her own mother struggled to be taken seriously among Americans, and Tan diagnoses this struggle as a result of her mother’s different way of speaking.

Tan, by contrast, used standard English – what used to be referred to, in loaded phrases, as ‘correct’ or ‘proper’ English – and was thus able to succeed in getting herself, and by extension her mother, taken seriously by others. Language is thus more than just a cultural marker: Tan reveals, in ‘Mother Tongue’, the extent to which it is a tool of power (or, depending on the use, powerlessness), particularly for those from migrant backgrounds.

In this connection, it is noteworthy that Tan chooses to focus on the school tests she undertook before concluding that her mother’s ‘broken’ style of English has been misunderstood – not just literally (by some people who’ve known her), but in terms of the misleading perceptions of her it has led others to formulate.

The class tests at school which reduced English proficiency to an ability to recognise a ‘correct’ answer are thus contrasted with Tan’s resounding final words of ‘Mother Tongue’, which see her seeking to capture the passion of her mother, the ‘nature of her thoughts’, and the imagery she uses: all things which her daughter has clearly inherited a respect for, and which school tests fail to capture or observe.

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Mother Tongue Summary, Purpose and Themes

Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” is a compelling exploration of language, identity, and familial bonds.

This nonfiction narrative essay, which debuted at the 1989 State of the Language Symposium and was later published in The Threepenny Review in 1990, delves into Tan’s multifaceted relationship with English, influenced significantly by her mother, a Chinese immigrant.

Full Summary

The essay unfolds in three distinct sections.

Initially, Tan introduces us to the concept of “different Englishes,” a theme central to the narrative. She describes the unique form of English spoken by her mother, referred to as her “mother’s English” or “mother tongue.” This language, distinct yet familiar, bridges the first and second parts of the essay.

In the heart of the essay, Tan reflects on the profound impact her mother’s language had on her life and identity. She recalls how her mother, not fluent in “perfect English,” often depended on Tan to bridge communication gaps. This experience shapes Tan’s understanding of language and its nuances.

The essay culminates in a powerful conclusion where Tan connects the dots between her mother’s English and her own writing style and career choices. She recounts how her mother’s presence at a talk for her book “The Joy Luck Club” triggered a realization about the various forms of English she uses.

Tan contrasts the English she speaks at home, her “mother tongue,” with the standard English she learned in school and uses in professional settings. Notably, Tan shifts languages seamlessly, a transition unnoticed by others, including her husband.

Tan shares anecdotes from her past, illustrating how her mother’s language shaped her. She resists describing her mother’s English as “broken,” arguing that it implies deficiency. Instead, she views it as a reflection of others’ limited perceptions.

This perspective is highlighted by the dismissive attitudes of her mother’s stockbroker and doctors, who fail to take her mother seriously, often necessitating Tan’s intervention.

Reflecting on her own journey with English, Tan discusses the challenges she faced in school, influenced by her mother’s unique use of the language. However, this challenge becomes a source of motivation rather than defeat.

Tan’s determination to “master” English leads her to initially distance herself from her “mother tongue.”

It’s not until she begins writing “The Joy Luck Club” that Tan realizes the inaccessibility of the English she was using.

Reconnecting with her “mother tongue,” Tan finds her authentic voice—one deeply influenced and cherished, the voice of her mother. In “Mother Tongue,” Tan not only narrates her personal journey with language but also raises profound questions about identity, culture, and the intrinsic power of language.

The purpose of Amy Tan’s essay “Mother Tongue” is multifaceted, encompassing several key themes and objectives:

Exploration of Language and Identity : Tan delves into how language shapes identity. By discussing the different forms of English she uses, she illustrates how language is deeply intertwined with personal and cultural identity. The essay emphasizes that the way we speak and the language we use are integral parts of who we are.
Highlighting Linguistic Diversity and Acceptance : Tan challenges the notion of standard English, advocating for the recognition and acceptance of linguistic diversity. She highlights the richness and complexity of her mother’s version of English, urging readers to reconsider what constitutes “proper” language.
Examination of Mother-Daughter Relationships : The essay is also a reflection on Tan’s relationship with her mother. Through the lens of language, Tan explores the dynamics of their bond, emphasizing how language both connects and separates them.
Commentary on Perception and Misunderstanding : Tan addresses how people are often judged based on their language proficiency. Her mother’s experiences with her stockbroker and doctors showcase the misunderstandings and dismissals non-native speakers frequently face. The essay serves as a critique of these societal attitudes.
Personal Growth and Self-Discovery : “Mother Tongue” is also a story of Tan’s personal journey in understanding her own linguistic heritage and how it has shaped her as a writer and individual. She discusses her initial struggles and eventual acceptance and embrace of her linguistic roots, which significantly influenced her writing style.
Cultural Representation and Advocacy : By sharing her experiences, Tan advocates for cultural representation and the importance of diverse voices in literature. Her journey to include her mother’s language in her writing is a statement about the value of different cultural perspectives in storytelling.

1. The Complexity and Impact of Language

Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” intricately explores the multifaceted nature of language and its profound impact on personal identity and relationships.

The essay delves into the concept of “different Englishes” that Tan encounters and navigates throughout her life. These variations of English—ranging from the standard forms learned in school to the unique, simplified version spoken by her mother—serve as a backdrop for examining how language shapes our understanding of the world and each other.

Tan’s narrative highlights the often overlooked nuances of language, demonstrating how the mastery or lack of mastery of a certain type of language can influence perceptions, opportunities, and interpersonal dynamics.

Her reflections on the dismissive treatment her mother receives due to her non-standard English usage poignantly underscore the societal judgments and barriers language can create.

2. Identity and Cultural Heritage

Central to “Mother Tongue” is the theme of identity, particularly how it is intertwined with cultural heritage and language.

Tan’s own sense of self is deeply connected to her mother’s “mother tongue,” an embodiment of her Chinese heritage. This connection is not just linguistic but also emotional and cultural.

Through her narrative, Tan explores the struggles of balancing her American upbringing with her Chinese heritage, a challenge faced by many children of immigrants.

The essay illustrates how language serves as a bridge and a barrier between her American identity and her Chinese roots.

Tan’s journey of embracing her mother’s English is, in essence, a journey of embracing her own cultural identity, showcasing the complexity of navigating dual heritages.

3. The Power of Voice and Self-Expression

“Mother Tongue” is also a profound exploration of the power of finding one’s voice and the importance of self-expression. Tan’s journey as a writer is central to this theme.

Initially, she struggles with standard English, perceiving it as the only legitimate form of expression in academic and professional realms.

This belief leads her to distance herself from her “mother tongue,” which she initially views as inferior. However, as she evolves as a writer, particularly while working on “The Joy Luck Club,” Tan discovers the richness and authenticity of her mother’s language.

This revelation allows her to find her true voice—a blend of her mother’s English and the standard English she has mastered.

Tan’s embracing of her unique linguistic heritage as a tool for storytelling and self-expression underscores the empowering nature of owning and using one’s individual voice, transcending conventional linguistic boundaries.

Final Thoughts

“Amy Tan’s ‘Mother Tongue’ is an insightful reflection on language, culture, and identity. Through her personal narrative, Tan eloquently demonstrates how language is not just a tool for communication but a significant factor in shaping our experiences, perceptions, and relationships.

Her essay underscores the importance of embracing linguistic diversity and challenges the conventional notion of ‘standard’ language, advocating for a broader understanding and acceptance of different forms of expression.

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Mother Tongue

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Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Amy Tan's Mother Tongue . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Mother Tongue: Introduction

Mother tongue: plot summary, mother tongue: detailed summary & analysis, mother tongue: themes, mother tongue: quotes, mother tongue: characters, mother tongue: terms, mother tongue: symbols, mother tongue: theme wheel, brief biography of amy tan.

Historical Context of Mother Tongue

Other books related to mother tongue.

Full Title: Mother Tongue
When Written: 1989
When Published: 1990
Literary Period: Contemporary
Genre: Essay, Memoir
Setting: Oakland, California; San Francisco, California; New York City, New York
Climax: Tan’s mother attends one of her talks about The Joy Luck Club .
Antagonist: Societal ignorance and bias
Point of View: First Person

Extra Credit for Mother Tongue

Sagwa. Tan’s 1994 children’s book, The Chinese Siamese Cat , was adapted for television and broadcast by PBS as “Sagwa The Chinese Siamese Cat.” First aired in 2001, the series follows Sagwa, the protagonist kitten, on her adventures as a palace cat in historic China.

Music. Tan’s talents aren’t limited to pen and paper. A member of the band “Rock Bottom Remainders” since 1993, Tan has performed with fellow authors Stephen King, Dave Barry, and Scott Turow.

Mother Tongue

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Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” : Rhetorical Analysis

In the essay Mother Tongue , Amy Tan believes that everyone speaks different languages in certain settings and are labeled by the way they speak. The author interested by how language is utilized in our daily life” and uses language as a daily part of her work as a writer. Throughout her life she recognizes her struggles applying proper English instead of the broken used in her home.

She became aware of how she spoke was when giving a lecture about her book The Joy Club and realized her mother who was in the audience did not understand what was being discussed. This was because she never used proper English in her home or talking to her mother. It is her belief utilizing proper English and broken English is essential in communication depending who you are talking to. The next time she noticed this about her English was when walking with her parents, she made the statement “not waste money that way”. This is due to the language barrier in her household that is used only by her family. Her mother was raised in China and spoke Mandarin her English always came across as broken to everyone outside the family, which made it hard for her to understand when someone spoke proper English.

Amy insured everyone that met her mother’s that even though her English seem “broken” it does not reflect her intelligence. Even though people placed this label on her mother of the way she spoke she rejected the idea that her mother English is “limited”. She highlights the fact that even her mother recognizes that her opportunities and interactions in life are limited by the English language. Amy Tan realizes that how you communicate within the family dynamic, especially for immigrant families plays a large role in in the growth of the child. It allowed her to acknowledge that perhaps her family’s language had an effect on the opportunities she was provided in her life. For instance in her experience, she notices that Asian students actually do better in math tests than in language tests, and she questions whether or not other Asian students are discouraged from writing or directed in the direction of math and science. Tan changed her major from pre-med to English and she decided to become a freelance writer even though her boss told her she couldn’t write. She eventually went on to write fiction , she celebrates the fact that she did not follow the expectations that people had of her because of her struggle with writing and language. With her mother as an influence Tan decided to write her stories for people like her, people with “broken” or “limited” English. In the essay , Mother Tongue, Amy Tan goes to great length to persuade the readers of her experiences being multicultural family that the effectiveness and the price an individual pays by insuring that their ideas and intents do not change due to the way they speak, whether they use “perfect” or “broken” English. Tan also clarifies to the readers that her “mother’s expressive command of English belies how much she actually understands”. She uses many examples to take readers into her life experiences to discover this truth. She utilizes the first person view throughout the essay and adds her firsthand knowledge of growing up with a multiple languages spoken in the home. This was done to validate of her argument and shine a light on the importance of this issue in her life as well as her culture.

The examples she uses is when she tells a story of her mother’s struggles with a stockbroker because of her “broken “ English, Tan quotes her mother’s words “Why he not send me check, already two weeks late. So mad he lie to me, losing me money”. Amy Tan did this to give the readers an idea on how this particular situation played out and how her mother’s English affected outcome. The authors writing is also very emotional and somewhat angry at throughout the essay , it makes her and her family very sympathetic figures. Tan’s specific concern is being shunned by both white-America and the Asian population. This also further her strengthen her views that puts her in an equally frustrating position from the perspective of Americans with the stereotypical views of Asians. Many people in college looked at her funny for being an English major instead of Math as a major. Individuals of Chinese decent are associated with math or science and that is because of the stereotyping that Asian receive. This is based on studies being conducted that a majority of Asians do in fact excel in mathematics and sciences.

Amy also observed that many of her instructors towards math and science as well and was even told by a former boss that writing was not biggest attribute and should focus more onto her account management skills. The author states that “perhaps they also have teachers who are steering them away from writing and into math and science, which is what happened to me”. The author utilized the nonfiction essay form to discuss how language played a major role in her life. This also allowed her to show the readers how her relationship with the English language and her mother has changed over the years. In her essay , Mother Tongue Amy Tan describes numerous incidences that helped shape her views as a writer. The uses of first persons account to describe her experiences with her mother and how her mother’s use of the English language influenced her upbringing, such as a story her mother once told her about a guest at her mother’s wedding “Du Yusong having business like fruit stand. Like off-the-street kind. He is Du like Du Zong – but not Tsung-ming Island people….That man want to ask Du Zong father take him in like become own family. Du Zong father wasn’t look down on him, but didn’t take seriously, until that man big like become a mafia. Now important person, very hard to inviting him. She may have chosen to focus on this type sentence structure because it gave the readers sense of awareness into her life and also to make it easier for them to understand the factors that shaped her style as a writer. In conclusion after reading Mother Tongue, it became very apparent that her mother played an important part in the author’s life. However, after further reading, I determined that she could have been addressing a specific group of people. She is also explaining her story to people who read her works, since so much of her literature seems to be influenced by how she views of the English language. Amy Tan goes to great lengths in the essay to give bits and pieces of how she overcame the perception that many people had of her, since she did not do as well with English-related schooling as she did with the Sciences, or Math.

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Exploring Language and Identity in "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan

Table of contents, the power of language, connection and identity, challenges and empowerment, breaking stereotypes, embracing linguistic diversity.

Tan, Amy. "Mother Tongue." The Threepenny Review, no. 43, 1989, pp. 10-15.

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Self-Assessment Essay

Post author By Mahir Shahriar
Post date December 5, 2023
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Mahir Shahriar

Phase 4 Final Self-Assessment Essay

I came into this semester of English not expecting much. I always struggled in English classes for varying reasons. I’ve always had difficulty writing essays and papers, and I always operated in a manner that there was always a right answer and a wrong answer. English classes always rode the line between right and wrong, using your creativity to create an answer that was neither right nor wrong. But I also knew this class was just a freshman introductory course for ELA. My upperclassmen said that the class was nothing too big and we wouldn’t do much. As time would have it though, this class would be a struggle for me. The writing we did had much higher standards than those that I did in high school and often took hours on end to complete. At the beginning of the course, we were presented with the course objectives, and through the coursework, we were tasked with meeting those objectives to the best of our ability.

One of the objectives we were tasked with was to see how attitudes toward linguistic standards empower and oppress language users. I believe that I achieved this objective very well as some of the works we read resonated heavily with me. The pieces of literature we read at the beginning of the semester such as June Jordan’s “Nobody Mean More to Me Than You and The Future Life of Willie Jordan” and Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” brought into perspective how the way someone speaks, regardless of how hard they try to show their emotions and relay their intentions. The standard of “white English” being normal and all other forms of English being wrong causes prejudice. Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” highlighted this best for me. The story of her mom getting discriminated against at the hospital due to her “broken” English resonated with me as my parents also did not have the best English back then, and they too were sometimes subject to discrimination.

Our next objective was to explore and analyze writing and reading a variety of genres and rhetorical situations. While I believe I achieved the aspect of reading and analyzing a variety of genres quite well, my analysis of rhetorical situations could be much better. Even with the worksheets’ help, I struggled to set up the rhetorical situations and find key information to complete them. Through time, I was able to improve at setting them up but I still do not believe that my proficiency in doing so is up to par with the expectations you set for us. The texts we read throughout the semester covered a variety of genres, we read personal narratives, essays, and poems, and watched speeches in the form of TedTalks. While these are all very different genres, the authors were all able to convey a similar message from similar experiences regarding language and its effect on the perception of a person, mainly showing how it can negatively represent a person, regardless of who they are and what they are trying to convey. Reading these texts allowed my understanding of language to grow, as I never really thought of language as affecting someone’s public perception, I always thought of it as just a standard on how people communicate.

The third goal was to develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing. I believe I hit the mark for this objective. While my strategies for reading have stayed the same, I always enjoyed reading so it was always a strong point and I never needed to change my approach to it. My strategies in drafting, however, have changed. Before when I would go to the draft, I just wrote random ideas down, most of which were wrong and that would eventually get scrapped in the final version. Now I start with bullet points, trying to come up with my main points and ideas before I write. In terms of revising and editing that draft, I often write my second draft as if it’s the final version of the paper, putting my all into it. Then I put it through Grammarly to clear any mistakes, then I wait a couple of hours, maybe a day before I look at it again. When I go to look at it, I read it aloud to myself as my writing style is very similar to how I speak. If I say something and it doesn’t sound right, I know where to fix and improve.

Our fourth goal was to recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations. This is an objective that I do not believe I’ve made sufficient progress in. Over the semester, I’ve consistently struggled with this even with the help of all the different worksheets. After weeks of doing it, I feel that my proficiency in recognizing and practicing key rhetorical terms and situations has improved, however, I feel that I am not adequately proficient at it to consider this goal to have been met. That does not mean that I do not plan on continuing practice on this. Utilizing rhetorical strategies greatly helps with the comprehension of the text and its deeper meaning, and properly learning how to do so will greatly aid me in the future.

Our last learning objective for this class was to adequately understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences. This is the objective that I believe I was most able to meet. I am someone who gravitates toward numbers, statistics, and research. Digital technologies such as Google Scholar helped connect me to research studies and academic journals easily and while I was introduced to it for the research paper we had to write, I definitely will continue to use it. I’m someone who enjoys research and learning more, and Google Scholar gives me easy access to accredited research studies and academic journals I can learn from. For this reason, I felt both extremely proud of my research essay and also quite ashamed. Those adjectives are quite contradictory, but the research paper was the first chance I had to do lots of hard research on a specific topic. I think for the first research paper I’ve ever written, it was quite good, but my passion for research was not satiated with that paper. I wanted to do more research, refine the paper more, and make it better, and I know I definitely could have if it were not for circumstances out of my control.

For the most part, this class was one of the most impactful English classes I’ve ever had. Most of the time, I go through English courses not learning much, not connecting to the texts, and not being proud of the work I was producing. This class was different, however. The work I was doing was meaningful and I was reading texts like Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue”, that I could connect with. I learned a new perspective on language and literature that deeply changed how I see works of literature and the rhetorical strategies I learned revolutionalize the analysis of texts. The course objectives of exploring and analyzing writing and reading a variety of genres and rhetorical situations, discerning how attitudes toward linguistic standards empower and oppress language users, developing strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing, recognizing and practicing key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations, and understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences; they all were put in place to help us grow as readers and writers. While I may not have proficiently met a couple of these objectives to a high enough degree, I can unquestionably say that I have grown as a reader and writer.

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Linguistic Identity. “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan Essay

The essay “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan is a beautiful and elaborate piece meant to demonstrate the cultural challenges and divides existing for those with English as a second language. Tan comprehensively explores the role that language plays in perceptions of the world, relationships among people, and the perception of other nationalities and ethnicities in intercultural communication. The primary purpose of the essay was to define and analyze Tan’s struggles with linguistic identity and how she used her background and relationship with the English language to become a writer.

The first point that Tan makes is regarding the power of language and its use in daily life. For some, language is a natural part of daily life, while to others it is a tool used in the profession. Tan describes that she suddenly became aware of the “different Englishes” that she and most other people use. Many things depend on the context of the language use, for example, the topic of discussion, setting, and the people one interacts with. Language can sometimes take on intimate forms used with family and close individuals that may not make sense to others or be grammatically incorrect. Tan particularly refers to her mother, who is of Chinese background and educated. The woman can use somewhat “broken” syntax and unorthodox phraseology. While Tan understands her clearly, others may struggle with communication.

The essay’s argument leads to how limited English is based on perception. Therefore, realizing these barriers, one can consider the challenges that non-native speakers may face in a variety of aspects in life where perfect grammatical communication is necessary. The author specifically highlights how Asian-American students are often steered towards math and sciences and believed to be incapable of lingual-based fields due to accents, phraseology, and grammar errors. In turn, Tan reflects on her own life as to how she faced similar cultural stereotypes, but defied expectations and became a professional author.

This article was selected due to the personal connection it has to my life. Language continues to define perspectives and cultural outlook for me based on my own background. I appreciate that Tan speaks candidly but personably, emphasizing the intimate moments of learning a second language, especially with the family involved. My goal is to promote the idea that is highlighted in the essay as can be related to a significant number of people and should be made known in the educational settings where there are so many non-native English-speaking children. Their socialization is limited, and ambitions are destroyed due to the stereotypes and cultural perspectives on language mastery. My goal is to break down these barriers and demonstrate my passion for language that similar to Tan’s arguments should not discriminate based on cultural background.

Evidence may be beneficial in supporting my claim from an empirical standpoint. Such aspects as education patterns, student capabilities, psychological and sociological perspectives can be explained through theory and research. Therefore, while Tan’s essay is largely based on personal experience, I hope to build it into a solid argument. I am particularly interested in the evidence that Tan offers regarding Asian student being directed into STEM programs rather humanities due to their perceived poor knowledge of the language.

My revision strategy will be based on carefully rereading my writing and focusing on feedback from other readers. I will use a variety of tools such as research databases, a thesaurus for better use of synonyms, and proofreading to check for grammar. I will focus on revising the large aspects first such as the flow of my argument and supporting evidence, and gradually focusing on smaller details such as grammar and word choice. Receiving feedback from outside perspectives as crucial as it helps to identify weaknesses that one would not commonly notice yourself. I think my greatest weakness is word choice and sentence structure which limit my ability to express the complex ideas on the topic. Utilizing external feedback helps to preview how my writing would be understood by the general readership.

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IvyPanda. (2021, July 10). Linguistic Identity. “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan. https://ivypanda.com/essays/linguistic-identity-mother-tongue-by-amy-tan/

"Linguistic Identity. “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan." IvyPanda , 10 July 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/linguistic-identity-mother-tongue-by-amy-tan/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Linguistic Identity. “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan'. 10 July.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Linguistic Identity. “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan." July 10, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/linguistic-identity-mother-tongue-by-amy-tan/.

1. IvyPanda . "Linguistic Identity. “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan." July 10, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/linguistic-identity-mother-tongue-by-amy-tan/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Linguistic Identity. “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan." July 10, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/linguistic-identity-mother-tongue-by-amy-tan/.

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Research Essay

Post author By Qusai
Post date May 5, 2024
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Comparative Study on Utilizing Different Rhetorical Devices in Several Genres

Part 1: Introduction

According to the second edition of John Frow, genre provides a thorough and understandable introduction to the subject. Genre is an important tool for classifying various kinds of literature and culture, but it is also a great deal more than that as follows: genres actively produce and influence our understanding of the world through discourse and writing, music and visuals, cinema, and television.

This paper examines is divided into two parts. The first one is to compare the four texts which have different genres in terms of rhetorical devices: Mother Tongue (essay) / The Haunted Oak (Poetry)/ Shooting an Elephant (short story)/ A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (magic realism). There are rhetorical devices that this paper considers are Alliteration, Amplification, Anacoluthon, Anadiplosis, Antanagoge, Apophasis, Chiasmus, Euphemism, Hypophora, anaphora, and Similes. For the second part, the paper supports Whatever has been discussed in the first part alongside the other scholars’ perspectives. I will start by analyzing each text and check which of the rhetorical devices are used to do a linguistic function in the texts.

First, Mother Tongue is an essay by Amy Tan about her mother’s language and how the language of immigrants and Chinese affected her way of seeing life. The essay mainly derives its authenticity from the events happening with her in real life, which is one of the most effective methods to persuade the reader. When it comes to rhetorical device use, the first thing that comes to mind is Anaphora (the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses). In the first and second paragraphs, she repeats “I am” more than nineteen times. The repetition used for several reasons: directing the thought of the reader that this is about personal experience and about establishing a connection with the reader by introducing herself, which all clustered the repetition of the word” I am.” She continues using the same style until the very end of the essay which resulted in building a strong connection with the reader and, at the same time, engaging the reader emotionally. A second rhetorical device that caught my attention during my reading is asyndeton (a literary device in which conjunctions are intentionally omitted to change a sentence’s tone). For example:

“Grammatical phrases, burdened, it suddenly seemed to me, with nominalized forms, past perfect tenses, conditional phrases, all the forms of standard English that I learned in school and through books, the forms of English I did not use at home with my mother.”

Out of many purposes of using asyndeton in writing, she wants to emphasize how much she is about realizing English language usage. Also, there is a sense of mentioning a point quickly without stopping on it. This rhetorical device is employed to emphasize the idea swiftly.

Now let us move on with the analysis of The Haunted Oak by Paul Dunbar, the poem describes a horrible scene that happened to an innocent man. In my perspective, the poem is a style of writing in which a writer wants either to say something indirectly or to make it brilliant in terms of description figure of speech and so on; in The Haunted Oak, based on the time writing and the condition of the writer, I would say it is the former, saying something indirectly.

The writer uses some rhetorical devices in the poem. First, an indirect reference to the person, event, or place is called allusion in poetry, it is used when the author believes that the reader will be able to make a connection with the reference. Paul Dunbar uses allusion in many places in his poem, for instance:

1.“And the rope they bear is long.”

2.“Oh, the judge, he wore a mask of black,

And the doctor one of white,”

Here the author refers to the people in authority by the long rope and to describing the doctor and the judge indirectly. Second, he uses asyndeton which refers to the connecting the words, phrases, and sentences without conjunctions. For example, I found this rhetorical device used in the below stanza:

“I am burned with dread, I am dried and dead,”

The most rhetorical device used in his poem is cacophony: it refers to the use of discordant and unpleasant word choice. There are many examples in the poem such as dim, weird, pains, moan, tremble, old crime, wail, dog howl, jail, and others.

Now Shooting an Elephant is a short story by the British writer George Orwell. First, Orwell used alliteration well during times of high stress and to emphasize the situation. During the elephant’s demise, George constantly employs the letter ‘S’ to describe what is happening. He describes the elephant as “suddenly stricken, shrunken, sagged, and slobbered.” The repetition increases the tension of the scene in the readers’ minds. Alliteration is used many times in this short sorry; in brief, when Orwell described the man killed in the mud. For sure there are many rhetorical devices used in this short story.

Finally, we have A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel García Márquez, to tell the truth, this is the first time I heard about the magic realistic genre, however, I read similar fictional stories with the same context and connotation, but this is a topic for different research, and it sounds interesting. Gabrial uses simile (a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid (e.g., as brave as a lion, crazy like a fox) in different parts of his story, for example:

“He was dressed like a ragpicker… his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away any sense of grandeur he might have had.”

Part 2: Discussion

First, according to Sag and Hankamer (1976), there are two main ways to interpret anaphora as a rhetorical device: The transformational position and the interpretive position. They explain it linguistically in which the former is independent, whereas the latter is more referential anaphora as it must have a reference in the external world. In our example in the first paragraph about the repetition of the pronoun “I”, Amy Tan was referring to an external referential which is herself; so, she used the interpretive position according to Sag and Hankamer. The discussion about this process is lengthy in terms of linguistic behavior involving deletion but will stick to this limit for the assignment.

An asyndeton is a rhetorical technique that indicates an ellipsis, consisting of “coordinated sentences or phrases without obvious conjunctions or connectives.” (Wales, 2001, p. 33). Asyndeton includes three types: namely, adversative asyndeton, causal asyndeton, explicative asyndeton, enumerative asyndeton, copulative asyndeton, summative asyndeton, and consecutive asyndeton, according to Leenknecht (2015). In the fourth paragraph, the example Amy Tan uses in her essay is in line with the last type, consecutive asyndeton. Leenknecht (2015) stated that consecutive asyndeton adverbs indicating chronological or logical sequence, such as ‘first’ or ‘and then’, are eliminated. He also discussed the idea that various activities or occurrences are recounted in sequential or spontaneous order. This kind can enhance storytelling and provide a sense of movement. The following paragraph discusses the allusion employed by Paul Dunbar in The Haunted Oak.

Sarah Annes Brown (2009) defined allusion as an act of making indirect references to other texts, incidents, or popular culture inside a literary work that enriches the meaning and context of the text. To illustrate the example stated in the sixth paragraph about allusion in poetry, Heather Dubrow (2002) indicated that “Allusion and intertextuality are closely connected, serving as points of connection between texts, allowing for the exchange of ideas and the construction of literary meaning.” In my perspective, the closest definition to the example we cited from The Haunted Oak is what Soledad and Utrera (2018) said about illusion; they illustrated that, in historical fiction, allusion refers to the delicate insertion of references to historical events, individuals, or texts inside the story, allowing authors to locate their stories within specific historical settings and deepen the reader’s understanding of the era. As discussed in the class, Paul wanted to discuss a historical event (hanging the man which is a historical story told about by his grandfather). The other example was about asyndeton but since we already discussed it, will move forward with other examples of different genres. Cacophony is also functioned in the poem, the example in paragraph nine. Out of many definitions of Emily Dickinson (2016), and Robert Frost (2019), I found Ralph Cohen’s definition relates more to the example I provided. He defined cacophony as a tool that refers to the purposeful use of loud, disruptive sounds in poetry or prose to create a feeling of dissonance or disorder, which typically mirrors the work’s thematic subject or psychological tone, which is the case with negative words in the poem. The next paragraphs discuss alliteration as a rhetorical device in Shooting an Elephant.

Even though alliteration is commonly associated with poetry, I found it in the short story of Shooing an Elephant which is illustrated in the example in paragraph ten. O’Connor (2022), in her recent paper, discussed alliteration in short stories which is, as she said, rare. She stated Alliteration may be used in short stories to create atmosphere, establish patterns, and underline significant themes or motifs in a subtle yet effective way. She added authors use alliterative tactics to improve the aural and aesthetic characteristics of their work, attracting readers’ attention to key events or imagery in the story. Next, we will discuss simile and allegory which are found in A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel García Márquez.

Gonzalez (2019) Similes are utilized in magical realist writing to bridge the gap between the commonplace and the supernatural, allowing authors to generate surreal imagery while keeping it grounded in recognizable terms. Similes function as channels for readers to explore the extraordinary inside the commonplace, blurring the line between reality and imagination in the narrative world. Therefore, what has been recognized in the story about simile is supported by this statement. In addition, Harris (2018) stated “Similes serve as powerful tools in literature, allowing authors to vividly convey complex ideas and emotions by comparing one thing to another using ‘like’ or ‘as.’ Through similes, writers create rich imagery that resonates with readers, facilitating deeper engagement with the text.” Basically, while reading about similes, similes and metaphors are somehow connected by explaining one thing by another. In the example we provided from the story, Márquez uses similes to make the image vivid and to make it more entertaining, from my perspective.

In conclusion, this comparative analysis sheds light on how different rhetorical strategies are used in diverse literary genres. We investigated how authors use rhetorical devices to enrich their writing and convey meaning by analyzing works ranging from essays and poetry to short tales and magical realism. The analysis of Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” demonstrated the successful use of rhetorical techniques like anaphora and asyndeton to develop personal connections and accentuate language intricacies. In Paul Dunbar’s “The Haunted Oak,” the use of allusion, asyndeton, and cacophony helped to create a dark atmosphere while also exploring themes of injustice and suffering. Proceeding on to George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant,” we saw how alliteration was used effectively to heighten suspense and depict the narrator’s mental agony. Gabriel García Márquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” exemplifies how similes may blur the barrier between ordinary and exceptional in magical realism. Finally, this study emphasizes the relevance of rhetorical techniques as effective instruments for literary expression across genres. Examining its use in different situations allows us to grasp the subtle ways in which authors use rhetoric to build fascinating narratives and enhance the literary environment.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hankamer, Jorge, and Ivan Sag. “Deep and Surface Anaphora.” Linguistic Inquiry , vol. 7, no. 3, 1976, pp. 391–428. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4177933. Accessed 29 Apr. 2024 .

Wales, Katie. A Dictionary of Stylistics . 2nd ed., Pearson Education, 2001.

Dubrow, Heather. “Allusion and Intertextuality: The Nexus of Rhetoric and Poetic.” Poetics Today , vol. 23, no. 1, Spring 2002, pp. 1-18

Brown, Sarah Annes . A Familiar Strangeness: American Fiction and the Language of Photography . Oxford University Press, 2009.

Fernandez Utrera, Maria Soledad. “The Function of Literary Allusion in Historical Fiction: A Case Study of Margaret Atwood’s ‘Alias Grace’.” Journal of Historical Fiction , vol. 4, no. 2, Fall 2018, pp. 87-104.

Cohen, Ralph. “The Sound of Silence: Exploring Cacophony in Contemporary Poetry.” Modern Language Quarterly, vol. 78, no. 3, September 2017, pp. 421-439.

O’Connor, Patricia T. “The Art of Alliteration in Short Fiction: Enhancing Narrative Texture and Meaning.” Journal of Short Story Studies , vol. 28, no. 2, Spring 2022, pp. 45-62.

Gonzalez, Maria. “Figurative Language in Magical Realism: Exploring the Function of Similes in the Works of Gabriel García Márquez.” Journal of Magical Realism Studies , vol. 12, no. 3, Fall 2019, pp. 78-95.

Harris, Robert A. “The Power of Figurative Language: Exploring Similes in Literature.” Journal of Literary Studies , vol. 45, no. 2, Spring 2018, pp. 87-104.

Johnson, Emily. “Unveiling the Depths: The Function of Allegory in Contemporary Fiction.” Literary Studies Quarterly , vol. 36, no. 4, Winter 2021, pp. 321-338.

Leenknecht, Annelies. “An Analysis of Asyndeton in Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘The Lowland’ and Its Dutch Translation.” Master’s Thesis, Faculteit Letteren & Wijsbegeerte, 2015. Promotor Prof. Dr. Lieve Jooken. Vakgroep Vertalen Tolken Communicatie.

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Good Things Come in Threes: Mother and Mother Tongue Celebrate the Launch of the Mother Knows Best Campaign

By Rachel Marlowe

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With Mother’s Day fast approaching, last night proved the perfect moment for Los Angeles-based denim label Mother to celebrate the launch of their new collaboration with female-founded media brand Mother Tongue.

The event, held at the Mars speakeasy in Hollywood (tucked away behind chef Evan Funke’s Mother Wolf restaurant, no less), kicked off with a DJ set by Deja Monet. Over cocktails, guests including Rumer Willis, Hilary Rhoda, Jessica Hart, Gillian Jacobs, Lexi Underwood, Logan Browning, Megan Ferguson, and Harley Viera-Newton picked out button badges bearing campaign statements such as “It’s the F***ing Guns” and “Reproductive Justice,” which they pinned to their jackets, clutches and Mother Spring collection ensembles.

“We’ve been long-time fans of Mother Tongue’s progressive storytelling and ability to amplify women’s voices,” said Mother co-founder Lela Becker of the collaboration. “With critical issues like reproductive rights and gun control on this year’s ballot, they were the perfect partner to feature and highlight women sharing what they stand for and what’s on their mind as November approaches.”

As Mother co-founders Becker and Tim Kaeding joined Mother Tongue co-founder Melissa Goldstein on stage to welcome the crowd, they took a moment to remind everyone of the important issues at stake this election year. In the spirit of the campaign, and to help further advocate for these causes, Becker also announced that they would be donating $10,000 to both Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, two organizations fighting on the frontlines for these critical issues.

The evening continued with a special performance by Rainey Qualley, aka Rainsford, who treated the crowd to a set of original music and covers while friends Britt Robertson-Floyd, Danny Dwyer and Paris Mumpower cheered her on. And, before the night drew to a close, guests were gifted with the collection’s socks and corduroy trucker hats to continue spread the campaign’s message—with a fashionable flair.

Gillian Jacobs

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Rumer Willis

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Harley Viera-Newton and Jessica Hart

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Amy Tan "Mother Tongue": Thesis

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Published: Mar 20, 2024

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‘A Long-Tongue Saga’

May 23, 2024 issue

Leon Forrest; illustration by Johnalynn Holland

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Divine Days

For the experimental novelist Leon Forrest, the sermon was a major source of inspiration: a flexible form, especially as refined in the African American tradition, that lends itself to both lofty rhetoric and common speech, mingling history, personal observation, moral assertion, and the interpretation of myth—to say nothing of the joy of allusion. In “In the Light of Likeness—Transformed,” an autobiographical essay collected in The Furious Voice for Freedom (1994), he wrote of discovering “a kind of cosmic totality within the monologue of the Negro preacher, which might, in turn, lead to a cosmic consciousness of the race.”

The characters in Forrest’s novels are great talkers—ramblers who become enraptured with their “sagas,” a word that becomes almost a refrain in his hefty fourth novel, Divine Days (1992). Although Forrest was praised by Ralph Ellison, Saul Bellow, Stanley Crouch, and Toni Morrison (who edited his first three novels for Random House), his work remains little known. Divine Days was first published by Another Chicago Press, but a sizable portion of its initial print run was destroyed in a warehouse fire; it was released again by Norton in 1993, and a new corrected edition now incorporates hundreds of changes that Forrest made for the paperback but that were not included because they reached Norton after printing was underway.

Divine Days takes place over one week, February 16–23, 1966. Its narrator is Joubert Antoine Jones, twenty-eight years old, a thirsty intellectual who has dropped out of college seven times. When we meet him, he’s fresh out of the army and tending his aunt’s bar, Eloise’s Night Light Lounge. A fair amount of Jones’s odyssey consists of managing the bar’s staff and customers, going on assignments for a local newspaper, catching up with acquaintances, fixating on an attractive painter, writing up his impressions of the central figures in his life, and being inducted into a private social club. He is kept busy listening to people ruminate, tell tall tales, fly off the handle, obfuscate, clarify, unburden themselves, and project.

Early in the book Jones mentions that he hears voices—think magical realism rather than schizophrenia. Sometimes the various personae clamoring in his head get the best of him: in one memorable scene, he goes to a church and is physically taken over by Connie Dixon Rivers, a tap dancer, leading him to upstage a preacher with his happy feet, which wins him the affection of seven churchgoing sisters.

Jones’s overriding ambition is to become a playwright, so he listens to how people interleave their conversations with other voices—those they know and those they’ve heard about. “I was as thirsty for stories as those ghosts Ulysses meets are famished for the blood in the trenches, in order to achieve the power of speech,” he says. “How else to stock my soul upon the lies and stories out of the mouths of others in order to build up a stockpile of voices—beside the ones I continually heard…?” He sees himself as Forrest did, as the product of both oral and literary traditions: the fruit of surrounding voices as well as ambitious reading habits. Jones’s thoughts are filled with the works of James Joyce, Lorraine Hansberry, Ralph Ellison, Herman Melville, W.E.B. Du Bois, Homer, Archibald MacLeish, William Shakespeare, and other respectable company. When he isn’t stressing over how to make his literary mark, or wondering how to escape his aunt’s influence, he’s observing what other people venerate: status, hipness, the law, romance, dope, hazy mysticism, the past, appearances, transgressions, etc.

As for Jones, his faith in the power of storytelling is infinite. That’s one of the reasons he admires his recently deceased friend Sugar-Groove. In the seventh chapter of a book that has a field day with the number seven, Jones commits to paper his memories of Sugar-Groove, who once told him:

I tell sagas about friends, some acquaintances I’ve known. Sagas I’ve known, or gathered in. Hoping frankly against hope, Joubert, these stories will add up to a long-tongue saga: tell a tale of what life means.

Born in Chicago in 1937, Leon Forrest was the only child of Adeline Green Forrest and Leon Forrest Sr., who were themselves only children. (His parents went to high school with Nat King Cole, who, Forrest reports, “was kind of sweet on my mother, or so I was told.”) His father, who grew up in Mississippi, never knew his own white father, Archie Forrest, and that absence marked him. A recurring theme throughout Forrest’s novels is the frustrated search for wholeness—his books are full of orphans, the violated, the jilted, and the bereaved. In Divine Days a “mulatto” child with dark skin and gray eyes navigates a complicated relationship with his white father, a former slave owner, who provides him with financial support but never acknowledges him as his son.

That child grows into a man who stumbles upon an unspeakable familial crime and then, at his father’s urging, heads north to escape being lynched. His flight takes him from Mississippi to Forest County, a version of Chicago’s South Side—Forrest’s Yoknapatawpha. He sheds his name and acquires many others, though his friends tend to call him Sugar-Groove. For the people who know him, he is a shape-shifter: a survivor of the South, a ladies’ man, a luftmensch, a true soul brother, a drifter, and a negligent father.

The novel begins with news of his death, though Jones is unsure whether to believe it. Nonetheless, it stirs up memories and ambitions, and he hopes to transform Sugar-Groove’s story into a play. For Jones, Sugar-Groove is the exemplar of footloose cool:

The phrase “Sugar-Groove’s been here and gone” implied the leave-taking from the set, the stroll, the scene, in some bodily manifestation or other of this man of India-ink complexion and majestic, magnetic, luminous, but also pure grey eyes (indeed a sub-dubbing of Sugar-Eyes, flung from the imagination of some unnamed adoring Delta darling after setting her eyes upon those of Sugar-Groove’s once too often). Yes, and long-gone but not long for this world, no, not on your life—and yet he not only survived, Sugar-Spine seemed to stylize survival into a stunning, glistening silver wheel, turned, transformed suddenly into gold, as it approached the sun.

Jones is also preoccupied with another local legend: W.A.D. Ford, a scurrilous preacher whose name alludes to W.D. Fard, the enigmatic founder of the Nation of Islam. He is the mythic counterforce to Sugar-Groove, a fellow trickster-hustler who knows how to turn situations to his advantage. Sugar-Groove hustles to keep himself free from dependence on anyone or anything, while Ford exults in his dominion over others. The street preacher draws much of his flock from the wretched of the city, and uplifts and abuses them with abandon; he seduces his female followers and conducts bizarre disciplinary rituals—yet also fosters dignity in otherwise abject individuals.

Forrest knew Elijah Muhammad, the longtime leader of the Nation, and worked as a reporter and then as an editor at Muhammad Speaks , the Nation’s newspaper, from 1969 to 1973. During most of those years there weren’t any Black Muslims on the editorial staff—the paper focused on racial injustice in the US and movements for decolonization abroad. In an interview collected in Conversations with Leon Forrest (2007), he discussed the Ford/Fard resemblance:

There’s the actual closeness in both stories, both the story that we know of Fard and my Ford, to manipulation and mystery—the intrigue and perhaps even a sense of the closeness that so many religious figures have to the magician and to the trickster…. But that’s why, of course, the Muslims always play around with the idea that Fard was really God incarnate. So then I take Ford (and the tradition) a step further and have him a hermaphrodite who keeps coming back again and again.

Though it doesn’t happen in the book, Ford says he takes on a female form now and then; Jones calls the preacher a “serial hermaphrodite.” Ford also claims descent from a god who impregnated a woman on a mountain after he “cleaned her up.” (Elijah Muhammad told his devotees a similar story about Fard’s birth.) Like Sugar-Groove, Ford is a symbol of change, reinvention, and moxie. While Ford is the villain of the book, Jones’s reflection about Sugar-Groove near the end is broad enough to accommodate both adventurers:

The Negro American’s will to transform, reinvent and stylize until Hell freezes over…. Reinvention was what King and his Spirit of Freedom Movement followers had attempted to do with Christianity, which we got from the white man, and remade into something else that might even renew them.

Jones tells us that he spent seven weeks “off and on” with Ford, who hoped to enlist him as an editor for a magazine. At the time, Ford gathered his flock in a storefront church called DIVINE DAYS , the future location of Eloise’s Night Light Lounge. Jones recorded his words and transformed them into a play. The Ford of Jones’s recollection is candid about wanting to colonize the minds of his congregation:

“The constant problem for every great leader, my young friend, is to keep his flock convinced through cycles of new horror and ecstasy that they are part of a new covenant with God. But you spin this new covenant out of some old myths…. The people (who are always wolves in lambs’ clothing) come to believe that it is you who’ve righteously come to actually save those old, so-called truths, when really you are spinning out a new fantasy, in accordance with your own high sense of drama, your interpretation. So you’ve spun them into a faith based in the dire need to sacrifice more and more, until any fragment of a gift you give the faithful makes them feel joyous—even when you abuse them. Abuse is very important, for it is linked to the sense of sacrifice, and their need for sacrifice.”

Jones was at DIVINE DAYS when Ford declared his insolvency before his congregation; an hour later Ford mysteriously vanished with all his assorted props, including “the improvised altar of solid stone, shaped in the form of a human heart, which weighed a ton and was purloined from a New Orleans whorehouse.”

The sacred and the absurd are always in close proximity in Forrest’s work. But compared with his earlier Forest County Trilogy— There Is a Tree More Ancient Than Eden (1973), The Bloodworth Orphans (1977), and Two Wings to Veil My Face (1983), all of which focus on the legacy of slavery— Divine Days is far more comic. He also makes Jones its first-person narrator, rather than mainly relying on the third-person perspective, as he had in the previous novels, a choice that appears to have been liberating. The last public talk that Forrest gave, in February 1997, less than a year before his death, was organized at Vassar by my friend Milton Welch. Forrest told him that for years he’d avoided committing fully to the first person because he didn’t want to sound like he was imitating Ralph Ellison. But when he attempted a new voice in what would become his most important novel, his work became more expansive.

In Divine Days , otherwise unremarkable individuals are capable of the most fantastic feats. There is a marvelous scene in which a “very ordinary-looking man” named Ratcliffe Shackleford walks into Eloise’s Night Light Lounge and draws all attention to himself:

Here’s how it all happened. Shackleford came in and ordered a half-pint bottle of Chivas Regal, with a tall glass of water off to the side. I served him and stood by to watch his monthly feat…. Apparently Calvin Thomas had never observed Shackleford’s exercise in mayhem, so he was especially attentive as the daredevil spectacular evolved. But first Shackleford had to remove his teeth, uppers and lowers, which he did, placing them upon a bar napkin. The sight of Ratcliffe’s false teeth dripping with spittle upon the bar napkin sent Calvin’s jaw to trembling with the cigar at his lips.

Now Ratcliffe Shackleford uncapped the famous scotch…and proceeded to take down the Chivas in one long, slow-motion, gurgling gulp from that bottle in his right hand, while his left hand reached out in a dramatic gesture and seemed to automatically flex in and out in a pumping motion, imitating the contractions of his heart…. (I could not help but think of the gestures of that famous singer, Roy Hamilton, as he reached for a wondrous note and we the audience prayed for him to pull off what we could only dream of accomplishing.)

Forrest originally thought of titling his novel The Memoirs of Joubert Jones . The more prosaic title suggests a reconstruction, but this language-drunk epic revels in artifice, on occasion to the point of overwritten dialogue. Here, for instance, is one of Jones’s acquaintances, Milton “Beefeater” Raines—a former local basketball star—describing how as a baby he was left in a basket and found on the street by two vagrants who were squatting in an abandoned newspaper shack:

“Clara, a homely bony-butt skeleton of a deep-dark brown-skinned woman, all arms and motion, slants and elbows,…finding on her left the basket with the infant in it, near the fire enveloped in a peaceful, yet lip-trembling sleep, as if some strange angels had knitted across his eyes a trouble-hushing thread mask of brief rest before the anguish and the mayhem of his condition was revealed—before his very eyes—and before this strangulated flop house, this shack full of old discarded rancid newspapers and despairing fools, soon to be momentarily civilized by his presence; his lips full of motion and shuddering in the inhospitable freeze despite the fire.”

The first time I read this section, I wrote “This just doesn’t sound right” in the margins. A “strangulated flop house,” really? Jones loses patience, too—at one point he says, “You see you’ve got me talking in circles like…In your voice.”

Forrest is like an impish host who’s content to leave you cornered by a half-crazed windbag before swooping in after he’s split to discuss what you heard. In another interview in Conversations with Leon Forrest , Keith Byerman, an English professor at Indiana State University, asked him:

While the characters are very different, and their stories are very different, their voices seem to have a lot in common; that is, there seems to be this piling on of language…. Is there some sense in which they’re all simply your voice?

Forrest rejected this characterization, but it strikes me that he was protesting too much.

When I read this chapter a second time, I noted this early description of Beefeater: “Typical Beefeater Raines talking ahead of himself, in back of himself, and around himself.” The same could be said of the novel’s dialogue. Forrest plays with language like a basketball, sending it up and down, back and forth, juking with it before going to the hole. Later in the book, Jones considers his uncle’s verbal style in a passage that could be read as echoing Forrest’s avant-garde approach:

In keeping with many men who work at jobs far beneath their expectations, but who possess a passion, even a palate for “phrase-minting,” Uncle Ledbetter often used language beyond words at home, as something of a compensation for the limits on the language imposed by the very nature of his occupation in the work-a-day world.

In both his fiction and his nonfiction, Forrest celebrates the intelligence and savoir faire of working-class aristocrats.

With its length of 1,140 pages, Divine Days has the space to elicit from the reader every emotion from awe to exasperation. The more time I spent with it, the more I was riveted by its accomplishments and the less I was irritated by its longueurs. Near the end of the book, Jones says that he doesn’t want to be an elitist writer—which is laughable given his dense web of literary references.

Although the dialogue can be overwrought, Forrest’s character descriptions are consistently arresting:

Rev. Clay J. Lightfoot was something to behold with the diamond rings on his fingers, his floweriness of contrived, sterling and preening phrases (vaulting over his actual modesty of his own intellectual angularity of ideas, his only touchstone to modesty); his baby-blue silk shirt, with laced french cuffs and rhinestone cuff links; his dark-blue, three-piece suit (hand-stitched in London, his advance copy on the back of the church program duly noted)…. The Rev. Clay J. Lightfoot made a most powerful imprint upon the church sisters.

Jones, who describes himself as a “halo-less Christian,” spies the earthly seam in the spiritual garb. Although he tells himself, late in the story, that in order to make it as a playwright “I’d surely have to become more acute about the vicissitudes of human clay,” everything about him suggests that he already has.

Divine Days is a book in which people relish turning over the details of stories they share, looking for new permutations of feeling and insight. (Sugar-Groove’s favorite song, Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy,” is given an ongoing Talmudic parsing.) Remembering the words of a barber and Shakespeare obsessive, Jones thinks to himself, “What had Galloway Wheeler so often said: ‘The power of interpretation is similar to the power of redemption, as we are delivered to the other side of human experience.’”

When Jones finally discovers what happened to Sugar-Groove, another configuration of human complexity is disclosed to him. In the book’s soaring climactic dialogue, Jones visits a nursing home to learn the story from Warren Wilkerson—another trickster—who, though easily capable of passing, has chosen to live as a black man. (In his time as an active journalist, Wilkerson infiltrated white supremacist organizations to steal their secrets.)

In his final days Sugar-Groove tried to divest himself of his many identities and retreated to a “mountain slab” to seek out the source of all things—not necessarily God but, as Wilkerson tells Jones, “the source of Light-Divine-creation.” The spiritual ecstasy Sugar-Groove discovered on the mountain was interrupted by a gun-toting Ford bent on paying him back for a run-in they’d had more than five decades before in Mississippi. Between the two of them, Jones and Wilkerson consider what fundamental truths of existence Sugar-Groove discovered in his confrontation with Ford. They’re aided in their inquiry by separate accounts written by the two men.

During his pilgrimage up the mountain, Sugar-Groove discarded most of his clothes and paraphernalia, but kept his rifle. In his diary, he recorded the beginning of Ford’s assault:

…And suddenly I found that I had to remake a way out of no way for violence within my spirit, in order to survive to know my place in the Universe, ultimately. Righteous indignation is one thing; but hell, I had to save my black ass—or get blown away into an eternity, by a demon, too, before I came to know where I belonged. I was still—digging. I had been poised at the precipice…Stopped at the Crossroads…ready for the leap of faith into tomorrow.

There is no unmodulated bliss or timeless purity, nor a singular identity that one can hold on to for spiritual fulfillment. Trouble is always waiting in the wings. Jones and Wilkerson reflect on the idea that mankind’s capacity for violence is necessary for our evolutionary fitness, “the magnificent lesson of the Evil One in action, who never will leave us alone in peace.”

Divine Days is a hymn to the textures of an African American experience that rejects neat platitudes. In another of my favorite parts, Jones’s aunt deconstructs the spurious logic that gave rise to the concept of blackness and at the same time drove black people to survive, and occasionally thrive:

“Joubert, the Africans who were betrayed by their various chiefs and sold into the enslaving hands of whites were themselves stripped from various tribes and stocks, each with greatly divergent cultures; all hurled into the tar black pit-holds of the ships: Gaboons, Pawpaws, Nagoes, Whydahs, Eboes, Angolas, Congoes, Foulahs, Mandingoes, Coromantees…. Because there aren’t really any races, when all is said…. The experience of these peoples from Africa was the white plague of this ever-spreading disease called enslavement, coupled with the massive destruction of families…. They had to quickly readjust to the constant pattern of overwhelming upheaval in the living present, or die out. Swiftly adjust to the onslaught against everything they had known, knew, loved, believed—or perish.”

Forrest often said that he believed life is predicated on chaos, and that people who can’t adjust to that condition are lost. The point is to use whatever wit or talent one has at one’s disposal to gain an angle on life—“to stylize survival,” as Jones said of Sugar-Groove, or, as Sugar-Groove himself said, to make “a way out of no way.”

Choosing Pragmatism Over Textualism

‘Give Me Joy’

The Whistleblower We Deserve

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Christopher Byrd lives in Brooklyn. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post , The New York Times Book Review , and The New Yorker . (May 2024)

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Guide to Mother's Day 2024: Things to do in NJ, places to eat, stories to read about Mom

Mother's Day is when you serve mom breakfast in bed, give her flowers and pamper her.

Or, we could take him out to dinner, proffers our NorthJerseyEats food team. (They also suggest some great gifts for foodie moms.)

Or we could just celebrate her — as many of our stories, photos and videos have over the years. We thought it would be nice to gather them here, and we hope you enjoy reading our tributes, profiles, essays and suggestions for great things to do, make and buy for Mother's Day.

Here's to Mom!

Enjoy a delicious Mother's Day Brunch at these seven North Jersey restaurants

Along with an amusing but cautionary tale about mishearing what kind of gift mom would like for Mother's Day, our food writer Kara VanDooijeweert offers lots of great suggestions of where to take mom for brunch on Sunday. Go out: Enjoy a delicious Mother's Day Brunch at these seven North Jersey restaurants

Think outside the brunch this Mother's Day: 7 ways to celebrate mom in North Jersey

The possibilities for celebrating Mother's Day in North Jersey are limitless, so make this May 12 unforgettable by making some unique memories with mom. Whether she enjoys learning a new skill, exploring nature, or just having a day of rest and relaxation, we have some suggestions for you. Take mom out: Think outside the brunch this Mother's Day: 7 ways to celebrate mom in North Jersey

Stanley is dropping 2 new collections: Soft goods and Mother's Day

Do you need a Mother's Day gift? How about a new cooler or a place to store your water bottle on the go? If so, Stanley has you covered with two new collections that will be dropping over the next week. Here is everything you need to know about the trendy tumbler company's upcoming releases. Read it: Stanley is dropping 2 new collections: Soft goods and Mother's Day

Want real home cooking? Go to Mom's Restaurant. Any of them

With Mother's Day — Sunday May 12 — just around the corner, we dare to ask: Why are so many restaurants named for mother? Mom's Kitchen (Fort Lee), Mom's Restaurant (Ringoes), Mama’s Café Baci (Hackettstown), Mom’s Golden Griddle (Manalapan), Madre & Son Soulfood Café (Newark), Mom’s Kitchen (New Brunswick), Mom’s Kitchen to Go (Mahwah), Momma’s Place (Linden), Mama Suegra Café (Parlin), Meemom’s (Brick, Middletown, Wall) are just a few in New Jersey. Née mother's: Want real home cooking? Go to Mom's Restaurant. Any of them

On Mother's Day, spare a thought for that eternal punchline: the mother-in-law

The mother-in-law is — or was — one of the most reliable punchlines in show business. She was bossy. Domineering. Overprotective of her daughter, and endlessly critical of her choice of husband. Worst of all, she was none of those things from a distance. Always, she was depicted as being on a visit that never ends. This Mother's Day, as you're giving candy and flowers and singing "M is for the Million things she gave me...," spare a thought for the poor, unhappy mother-in-law. Cue the laugh track: On Mother's Day, spare a thought for that eternal punchline: the mother-in-law

Songs only a mother could love

M is for the million songs that have been written about Mother. But not lately. Bouquets, baubles, Hallmark cards — those are the kinds of things we buy for Mother on her big day. The sheet music to the latest popular song about mother, not so much. But once upon a time, Mother was a song genre. More than that, she was an industry. Mother — not just on Mother's Day, but any time of year — used to be considered one of the few surefire topics for a Tin Pan Alley songwriter in search of a hit. Strike up the band: Songs only a mother could love

Yankee Stadium honored this North Jersey woman as 'Veteran of the Day' on Mother's Day

In 2023, Nancy Radoslovich was honored with a standing ovation at Yankee Stadium's home plate on Mother's Day as the Veteran of the Game . For a self-described lifelong die-hard Yankee fan, it was almost as good as being in the lineup. Radoslovich served with the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps from 1986 to 1994, including a tour as an operating room nurse in Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm from 1990 to 1991, retiring with the rank of lieutenant commander. "Think M.A.S.H. television show and that's a pretty good idea what I was doing," Radoslovich said days after the honor at the stadium in the Bronx. "Living in tents, wounded soldiers." Read more : Yankee Stadium honored this North Jersey woman as 'Veteran of the Day' on Mother's Day

A Mother's Day gift to remember: NJ daughter donates kidney to ailing mom

When Teresita Sayasa's kidneys began to fail last year, her daughter Tracy Montemayor immediately offered to donate one of her own. But Teresita, 71, was hesitant. What toll would transplant surgery take on Tracy? Would her daughter be able to live a full life with one kidney? What if Tracy's teenage son or another younger relative needed one of her kidneys in the future? "I told her that she wasn't going to be able to survive this without me," Tracy said. In 2023, mom, daughter and other family members gathered at a Korean barbecue restaurant to not only celebrate an early Mother's Day but to mark Teresita's new lease on life. It was a long road to that point. Read about their journey: A Mother's Day gift to remember: NJ daughter donates kidney to ailing mom

This North Jersey mother-daughter duo are changing the luxury clothing industry

Growing up, Margot Adams’s relationship with her mother Gina Kuyers wasn’t always smooth. But as adults, they learned to work well together ― literally. In 2019, Adams joined her mother's business, Luxeire, which creates comfortable women's clothing using ecofriendly fabric, as head of marketing and sales. Mom and daughter duo: This North Jersey mother-daughter duo are changing the luxury clothing industry

This story is from our archives. Please call ahead to check on whether restaurants are still open, prices are still the same or menus are still being offered.

Best Mother's Day brunch at every price point, including secret gems you might not know of

if you're planning on taking Mom out for a delicious brunch, don't wait any longer to make a reservation. Do it now! It's Mom, after all. Where should you take Mom? That depends on your budget, of course, and what mom likes to eat. So to help you, here's our Mother's Day dining roundup that includes a variety of North Jersey restaurants that offer different cuisines and different price points (including some smaller chain restaurant options, if that's what your mom prefers). Note that many of the listings for prix-fixe Mother's Day meals do not include taxes and gratuities. Where to take mom: Best Mother's Day brunch at every price point, including secret gems you might not know of

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Mother's Day things to do in New Jersey, brunch spots, gift idea guide

10 Mother's Day gifts from Oprah's Favorite Things list that will arrive in time — starting at $25

Surprise Mom with gifts approved and used by Oprah herself.

5 things to know from the weekend in MLB: Dodgers trounce Braves, Phillies' Trea Turner injured and more

Here's what you might've missed from this weekend's action across the league.

Kyle Richards gave us a hot tip on a Mother's Day gift and it's just $40: 'Look at the cuteness of this beach bag'

You don't have to spend a ton of money to make mom feel like a million bucks.

Tom Brady roast: Top highlights from the raunchy Netflix special

Netflix's "The Roast of Tom Brady, AKA The Greatest Roast of All Time" featured the legendary NFL quarterback taking jokes about his divorce and good looks, along with teammates like Rob Gronkowski.

Kyle Larson beats Chris Buescher at Kansas in closest finish in NASCAR history

Larson won by 0.001 seconds.

Mother's Day gold: 'Festive' solar torch lights to make her garden glow — save 40%

Get eight of these flickering-flame beauties for $30 and 'make spring/summer a little more fun.'

Shohei Ohtani punctuates Dodgers sweep of Braves with 2 home runs to tie MLB lead

Ohtani tagged Braves ace Max Fried for a two-run shot in the first inning, then hit a solo shot in the eighth as the Dodgers prevailed in a battle of NL favorites.

The NBA Loser Lineup: Paolo Banchero, Magic on the rise in fantasy and reality despite playoff exit

Basketball analyst Dan Titus breaks down what the teams and stars who were booted from the NBA Playoffs must do to remain in good fantasy standing next season.

Formula 1: Lando Norris gets his first win ahead of Max Verstappen at the Miami Grand Prix

Norris hadn't pitted and was leading the Grand Prix when a safety car was deployed for Logan Sargeant and Kevin Magnussen's crash.

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A Summary and Analysis of Amy Tan's 'Mother Tongue'
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) 'Mother Tongue' is an essay by Amy Tan, an American author who was born to Chinese immigrants in 1952. Tan wrote 'Mother Tongue' in 1990, a year after her novel The Joy Luck Club was a runaway success. In the essay, Tan discusses her relationship with language, and how….
PDF Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan
Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan I am not a scholar of English or literature. I cannot give you much more than personal opinions on the English language and its variations in this country or others. I am a writer. And by that definition, I am someone who has always loved language. I am fascinated by language in daily life.
Mother Tongue Summary & Analysis
Analysis. Amy Tan opens the essay with a disclaimer: she is not a "scholar" of the English language. Instead, she self-identifies as a writer, focusing on the power and strength of words within the language and how she personally uses them in her life and writing. Tan claims to use "different Englishes " and recalls experiences in her ...
Mother Tongue by Amy Tan Plot Summary
Mother Tongue. "Mother Tongue" is an autobiographical essay in which Amy Tan identifies the varied nature of language in her everyday life. As a result of her mother 's presence at a talk for her book, The Joy Luck Club, Tan becomes acutely aware of the many different " Englishes " she speaks. Tan realizes that this is the first time ...
Mother Tongue by Amy Tan
''Mother Tongue'': Further Analysis. In this lesson, you learned about Amy Tan's essay, ''Mother Tongue''. In this essay, she explores the role of English in her relationship with her mother.
Mother Tongue Summary, Purpose and Themes
Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue" is a compelling exploration of language, identity, and familial bonds. This nonfiction narrative essay, which debuted at the 1989 State of the Language Symposium and was later published in The Threepenny Review in 1990, delves into Tan's multifaceted relationship with English, influenced significantly by her mother, a Chinese immigrant.
Mother Tongue Study Guide
Before its publication as an autobiographical essay in The Threepenny Review in 1990, "Mother Tongue" was Tan's anticipatory response to her fellow panelists at the 1989 "The State of the English Language" conference. Describing her mother's influence on her writing style, Tan highlights the role her "mother tongue" plays in her debut novel, The Joy Luck Club.
PDF Mother Tongue
ESSAY Mother Tongue Don't judge a book by its cover or someone's intelligence by her English. By Amy Tan • Art by Gabe Leonard I am not a scholar of English or literature. I cannot give you much more than personal opinions on the English language and its variations in this country or others. I am a writer. And by that definition, I am
Mother Tongue Summary and Study Guide
Summary: "Mother Tongue". "Mother Tongue" explores Amy Tan's relationship with the English language, her mother, and writing. This nonfiction narrative essay was originally given as a talk during the 1989 State of the Language Symposium; it was later published by The Threepenny Review in 1990. Since then, "Mother Tongue" has been ...
Mother Tongue Essay Analysis
Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Mother Tongue Summary
Amy Tan begins "Mother Tongue," her essay about writing in English, with a disclaimer: I am not a scholar of English or literature. I cannot give you much more than personal opinions on the ...
An Analysis of "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan
Summary of Mother Tongue by Amy Tan. "Mother Tongue" is a personal essay that explores the author's relationship with the English language. Tan reveals that she grew up in a bilingual household where her mother's English was considered "broken" or "limited" by the dominant English-speaking community. Tan's mother's language proficiency was ...
Mother Tongue by Amy Tan: English v. The "Broken Language" Essay
Summary. In her essay 'Mother Tongue', Amy Tan tries to use her personal experience to describe the importance of language in a society. In this analysis, the author compares perfect English language with 'broken language'. Using English as an example, the author attempts to explain how language is important in communications.
Amy Tan's Story "Mother Tongue" Essay (Critical Writing)
Amy's mother dreamt of coming to America with her daughter in order to get away from poverty and to provide a better quality of life for her. Amy Tan became a writer and in Mother Tongue, she describes her relationship with her ancestry and traditions. For her English as a language becomes a creative tool and she shares how she was affected ...
Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue" Analysis
Published: Mar 16, 2024. In Amy Tan's essay, " Mother Tongue ," she explores the importance of language and how it shapes our identity. Tan reflects on her experiences growing up as a Chinese-American and the challenges she faced due to her mother's limited English proficiency. Through her personal anecdotes, Tan illustrates the complexities of ...
"Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan: [Essay Example], 931 words
Get custom essay. The article, "Mother Tongue, is a vivid description of how an immigrant is faced with difficulties and challenges communicating, learning English, and overcoming cultural barriers. We live in a society that has a tendency to judge individuals on their traits, characteristics, beliefs, and one's ability to communicate with ...
The Significance of Language: Essay on "Mother Tongue"
Conclusion. This essay analyzed the importance of language using Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue". To summarize, Tan's story tells us that the main purpose of language is to enable people to express themselves and also be in a position to share the expression with others. That's the sphere where the significance of language is undoubted.
Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue" : Rhetorical Analysis
In the essay Mother Tongue, Amy Tan believes that everyone speaks different languages in certain settings and are labeled by the way they speak. The author interested by how language is utilized in our daily life" and uses language as a daily part of her work as a writer. Throughout her life she recognizes her struggles applying proper English instead of the broken used in her home.
Exploring Language and Identity in "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan
In her essay "Mother Tongue," Amy Tan delves into the complexities of language and the profound impact it has on shaping an individual's sense of self. Through personal anecdotes and reflections, Tan explores the various ways in which language can both unite and divide people, while also shedding light on the significance of embracing one's ...
Mother Tongue Essay
Long and Short Essays on Mother Tongue for Students and Kids in English. We are providing students with essay samples on a long essay of 500 words and a short essay of 150 words on the topic 'Mother Tongue' for reference. Long Essay on Mother Tongue 500 Words in English. Long Essay on Mother Tongue is usually given to classes 7, 8, 9, and 10.
Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue": Embracing Linguistic Diversity
Amy Tan's essay "Mother Tongue" explores the concept of linguistic dominance and its impact on personal identity and relationships. As a Chinese-American writer who has experienced the challenges of communicating in English as a second language, she sheds light on the power dynamics associated with language and highlights the significance of valuing and embracing linguistic diversity.
Self-Assessment Essay
Phase 4 Final Self-Assessment Essay. ... Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue" highlighted this best for me. The story of her mom getting discriminated against at the hospital due to her "broken" English resonated with me as my parents also did not have the best English back then, and they too were sometimes subject to discrimination. ...
Linguistic Identity. "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan Essay
The essay "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan is a beautiful and elaborate piece meant to demonstrate the cultural challenges and divides existing for those with English as a second language. Tan comprehensively explores the role that language plays in perceptions of the world, relationships among people, and the perception of other nationalities ...
Research Essay
First, Mother Tongue is an essay by Amy Tan about her mother's language and how the language of immigrants and Chinese affected her way of seeing life. The essay mainly derives its authenticity from the events happening with her in real life, which is one of the most effective methods to persuade the reader. ...
Good Things Come in Threes: Mother and Mother Tongue Celebrate the
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - MAY 01: Rainey Qualley (R) performs onstage during the MOTHER x MOTHER TONGUE "MOTHER KNOWS BEST" event at Mars Speakeasy on May 01, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
Amy Tan "Mother Tongue": Thesis: [Essay Example], 443 words
In conclusion, Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue" presents a compelling thesis on the influence of language on identity and relationships. Through personal anecdotes and reflections, Tan highlights the complexities and challenges of navigating between different linguistic and cultural worlds. Her essay serves as a poignant reminder of the power dynamics ...
'A Long-Tongue Saga'
The sacred and the absurd are always in close proximity in Forrest's work. But compared with his earlier Forest County Trilogy—There Is a Tree More Ancient Than Eden (1973), The Bloodworth Orphans (1977), and Two Wings to Veil My Face (1983), all of which focus on the legacy of slavery—Divine Days is far more comic. He also makes Jones its first-person narrator, rather than mainly ...
Guide to Mother's Day 2024: Things to do in NJ, places to eat ...
Mother's Day is when you serve mom breakfast in bed, give her flowers and pamper her. Or, we could take him out to dinner, proffers our NorthJerseyEats food team. (They also suggest some great ...

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Guide to Mother's Day 2024: Things to do in NJ, places to eat, stories to read about Mom

Enjoy a delicious Mother's Day Brunch at these seven North Jersey restaurants

Think outside the brunch this Mother's Day: 7 ways to celebrate mom in North Jersey

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