Amy Tan Anecdotes

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Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” utilizes anecdotes, pathos, and parallelism to convey her attitude towards her mother and her “broken” English. Anecdotes were employed as a way to express Tan’s views on her mother and her struggles with English. It was used to depict how her sentiments of her mother changed throughout specific eras of her life. For one anecdote, she narrates the time when her mother needed teenage Tan to call stockbroker so her problems would be taken seriously. They eventually visited the stockbroker to repair the mess, and Tan was red from embarrassment, “... and I was sitting there red-faced and quiet, and my mother, the real Mrs. Tan, was shouting at his boss in her impeccable broken English” (405). This anecdote specifically …show more content…
Pathos is is efficient in getting the readers to experience the wave of emotions the author undergoes. When her mother discovers she has a brain tumor and the CAT scan of the tumor has vanished, she felt that doctors and nurses, “...did not seem to have any sympathy when she told them she was anxious to know the exact diagnosis, since her husband and son had both died of brain tumors,” (405). Not only does this excerpt make the audience angered and vexed, but also forms an emotional bond between those that loss a loved on to cancer or to anything at all. By Tan including this, it also shows how she feels about her mother. Her mother has a logical argument, but because of her speech, they don’t take her requests as seriously as they would if Tan called. She recognizes the prejudice that faces her mom and can’t help but feeling sorry for her. Parallelism takes an important role in much of Tan’s essay to present her sentiments of her mother. Concluding her essay, she talks about how she wanted her writing, “to capture what language ability tests never reveal: her intent, her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her thoughts, and the nature of her thoughts,” (408). Tan knows her mother isn’t a great speaker, but she knows her messages behind her words doesn’t mean less. She respects her mother so much she echoes her oration skills off of her mom’s. In Tan's essay "Mother Tongue", she
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