Amy Tan

In my analysis of "Two Kinds", a portion of Tan's larger work, "The Joy Luck Club," I look at how the emphasis on the American Dream in Jing-Mei Woo's life hinders her identity development and ultimately causes her to be selfish and value material wealth more than character.

Le rêve est dans le roman migrant un espace privilégié de confrontation des cultures. Chez Maryse Condé, la parenté de l’espace onirique avec celui du conte créole est évidente, tandis que chez Amy Tan, les légendes chinoises et américaines se heurtent en particulier à la tombée de la nuit, refuge des esprits ancestraux. La rencontre avec les esprits apporte des réponses à l’angoisse identitaire dans un univers régi par la rationalité et l’univoque : " This book argues that, despite the various manifestations of ghostliness in recent haunted literature, stories of cultural haunting are drawn together not only by their conjuring of ghosts to perform cultural work but also by their tendency to organize plots as a movement from negative to positive forms of haunting and by certain thematic concerns to which they obsessively return. " (1) Cette rencontre est étroitement liée au rêve, dimension complémentaire ou conciliation de l’espace familier et étranger, opposé aux modes d’investigation de l’ethnologie : le rêve survient comme marque du destin, de l’irrationnel et du surnaturel, alors que le regard ethnologique tente de classer et de comprendre les phénomènes étranges. Le rêve révèle, comme l’a montré Sigmund Freud, les souhaits refoulés par l’individu et lui permettent de les résoudre fictivement. Or, quand bien même le regard ethnologique n’est jamais objectif et implique des motivations et donc une subjectivité, on ne peut considérer son résultat simplement comme expression ou comme satisfaction de souhaits niés par la conscience de l’observateur. On peut considérer l’approche ethnologique comme un mode d’observation à un moment précis, dont le rêve est la manifestation souterraine. Ainsi, les séquences oniriques révèlent l’intégration du regard ethnologique dans l’intimité des personnages. Le regard à la fois extérieur de l’étranger qui découvre une culture inconnue jusque là et familier est présenté comme une constante dans leur univers.
Les romans de Maryse Condé, et en particulier Célanire, cou coupé, illustrent cette fonction du rêve qui s’avère double : le rêve confirme à la fois la distance qui sépare la narratrice de ses proches, car les rêves ne sont pas compris, et l’identité car le rêve de Célanire aboutit à un attachement culturel.

Has the American Dream became the American Nightmare? Is the dream a myth or is it impossible to be dreamt anymore? Sherman Alexie and Amy Tan answer this question, in an ethnic perspective in the 1990s America. Not only in terms of material success, but also as a matter of acceptance in the American society, in terms of equality and democracy, how much could the America achieved so far is opened the discussion by the short stories of Tan and Alexie. From two different ethnic roots, one Indian and one Chinese, the two authors answer the question if whether the dream has became unreachable.

Abstract. The following article will discuss the representation of food, eating and cooking in the context of fiction that focuses on the relationship between mothers and daughters by taking a closer look at the beginnings of contemporary ‘food-literature ’ by female authors. By focusing on the novels Like Water for Chocolate, The Joy Luck Club and A Chorus of Mushrooms, three texts that were published before ‘food-literature ’ turned into a mainstream sub-genre, this article will critically consider the various themes and ideas this type of literature introduced to the debate surrounding literary representation of gender and sexuality. Whilst the three texts differ in narrative structure and content, they share a specific preoccupation with food, cooking and eating which is linked textually and thematically to the relationships between mothers and daughters and the experience of cultural diaspora. The investigation will focus on the literary and formal modes that interconnect these...

'Incorrect' or 'Englishes' "Mother Tongue" is an essay by the American author Amy Tan. published in the literary magazine 'The Threepenny Review' on 1990. The piece dissects the manner in which we utilize various rhythms, variants, and parlances of English relying upon the setting inside which we are talking. For Tan, this assortment of "Englishes" is especially thunderous for offspring of migrant families, who are moulded in intriguing ways by the manner in which they experience the language that they have needed to learn as grown-ups. In her article, "Mother tongue" Amy Tan examines how her experience made her life, her training, and brought her disgrace, in any case, she figures out how to grasp her experience. Tan depicts how she was stuck between two universes. She says when she spends time with her mother, she talks in straightforward English, however while she is in the public, she moves to an English that is more formal; one that English-talking individuals admits. Tan relates her account of her mom discussing a criminal that needed her family in China to receive him since her family had more status. She reveals to us the story utilizing her mom's language, so we can perceive how expressive her mom's wrecked English is. Despite the fact that the language isn't what we might be utilized to, her story is something we can follow. It is distinctive with many details and images from her person life. For Tan, her mom's language is the language of her youth and growth, and its clear and brimming with symbolism. She has no troubles seeing precisely what her mom is stating. She realizes that this straightforward English is a similar language that helped her comprehend the world, helped her define her perspectives, and helped her figure out how to communicate. She states, "I am someone who has always loved language. I am fascinated by language in daily life. I spend a great deal of my time thinking about the power of language-the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth" These sentences in the essay States the ability of language and her interest for the language. Tan discloses to her readers that she was acquainted with the English language from numerous points of view. She gives various instances of various language from the various impacpts throughout her life. Her utilization of language in this article assists with demonstrating her point that you shouldn't base your judgment of somebody's insight on their utilization of a new dialect. Tan's target group could be anybody that needed to gain proficiency with another dialect to fit in where they live. She shows the readers that there is more than one sort of right English. She deliberately tries to dissolve the center that is associated with the language. She alludes to the "Englishes" in between. Tan brings up the biased perspectives that numerous individuals have of people from various foundations or societies. She states "I knew I had succeeded where it counted when my mother finished reading my book and gave me her verdict: 'So easy to read" She isn't looking for the endorsement of pundits and decides not to compose like an educator despite the fact that others may accept she should. She composes only for her readers and needs them to have the option to comprehend her composition without limit.

Academics often forget that the critics who are usually most important, at least initially, in generating interest in an author's work are reviewers for the popular press. These reviewers are not, typically, academics themselves, but it is their assessments that usually determine whether and how well an author's books sell and thus reach an interested audience. My purpose in this essay, then, is to survey some examples of how Amy Tan's six novels were reviewed in the "popular press" when they first appeared. 1 As will be seen, although the reviewers who assessed Tan's works used a wide variety of critical approaches, the ones they most often employed were thematic, archetypal, and formalist. That is, reviewers were often concerned with the themes or topics Tan explored; with the "universal" appeal of her writings; and with the artistic skill her writings did (or did not) exhibit. This survey of the history of Tan criticism can tell us something about the recent history of criticism in general.

Book published by Palgrave Macmillan in the series American Literature Readings in the 21st Century. Can order print copy, e copy, or individual chapters at https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9780230110458.  First Place Winner of the President's Book Award at Texas Tech University.

TÉ DE ROSAS
“¿No eras tú aquella silenciosa mujer ofuscada en su Té de Rosas….?”
WANG XIAONI, La dama del Cisne

A Amy Tan

气
“Té de rosas” –dices y sonríes-.

方
“Té de rosas” –repite la multitud-.

行
“A Té de rosas saben tus labios”.

戈
“Tus labios saben a Té de rosas”.

I cannot recall when the last time was that my imagination offered me something constructive, nor the last it assisted me in any way. I am talking about imagination, not creativity; creativity is something else — something providing us with intermittent glimpses of the outside world in its grand and transcendental wholeness. Science is not able to recount it, the bible cannot either. Art glimpses at it sometimes. Imagination, on the other hand, is the source of all the anxieties mankind can envision. It originates inside us but draws inspiration from the outside world in all its smallness and mundanity. It is when life has made its cycle once again, that I had the sudden and eventual impression there is something that is not being said about the world. This is when I have started questioning the function of imagination in my life. Think about someone who has been blind for life, getting what they call a sight restoration [we see things in such a rooted ocularcentric perspective we are not able to understand how one could live their life without, so we call it restoration]. Think about how this someone has been acquainted for all this time to being in the delicate world of dim lights and discreet, insightful touches. Someone who may have developed a wide dictionary of perceptions us sighted are not in the position to acknowledge, as our language of colours does not allow even the smallest description of it [as we do not have " colours " to portray sounds nor to depict smells; and with this I am to mean the closest possible category to colour that was never developed for the blind's world]. Think about how this person's imagination led them to wonder what a sublime thing the world is, according to their touch and feel. We told them it is even better once they would have got to see it with their own eyes. The disappointment they might feel when this happens to become true is limitless. Imagination worked against them, just like it works against someone who has being seeing for all their lives, but has being perception-blind for most of it, us sighted for instance. Because imagination is the fruit of our own thinking, it stays in the box, and never escapes it. It can reach such wide and profound taste of anxiety within its fields of knowledge — the possible — but it cannot provide us with insights into something lying outside our perceptive zone, something we have never experienced. Creativity, instead, is an apparatus that happens to be there every time we would think outside this box. It just happens. Creation comes from somewhere inside the world but outside our sheer understanding of it, imagination from what we think we understand of it. Creativity is uniting and intact, imagination is fragmented and divorcing.