Amy Tan Mother Tongue Thesis

Words: 1086
Pages: 5

Mother Tongue Amy Tan is an American writer and author of many writings focusing on mother-daughter relationships and Chinese American experiences. She is best known for her novel “The Joy Luck Club,” which describes the painful relationship between four Chinese American daughters and their mothers. Mostly all of her writings include some of her personal stories between her and her mother on day to day experiences. In the novel “Mother Tongue” Amy decides to share her personal background and the way she sees and uses English from her perspective. It is important to emphasize that they both come from China. The novel “Mother Tongue” describes Amy Tans experience with the English language “that helped her shape the way she saw things, expressed …show more content…
Amy also states the difficulty of non-fluent English speakers in this society. She provides numerous example of her innately helping her mom with simple task like talking over phone about business deals or talking to a doctor about cat brain tumor photo scans. She states that strangers pretend to not understand her mother and ignore her, so they don’t have to deal with uneducated foreigner. Tans mother doesn’t receive the same respect that fluent speaking personas do. Tan points out that her mother is very well-educated woman who reads the Forbes, listens to wall street week and manages stockbroker deals. Many people in this society fall flat in understanding these kinds of media information and business partner deals, not Amy’s mother. Tan believes that her mother’s English played a major role in her life structure. Without the language barrier many opportunities would be lost, and she would have not been the same person today. She clarifies to herself and readers that the reason many Asian-American students are directed more towards science and math is because of …show more content…
Many people coming from different ethnicities and background who speak many kinds of languages create a diversity in this world. The diversity creates a more diverse world which makes everyone more unique. This uniqueness not only comes from ethnicities, personal back stories but also from “mother tongue.” Mother tongue helps newborns shape their future individuality and uniqueness in this world. The language is our identity and says a lot about persons uniqueness. Amy’s other purpose in this novel is to educate the people like her that the ideas or thoughts are not less important or wrong simply on the way they are expressed. Tans audience include people like her mother who struggle with English language nevertheless herself. At the begging of the novel she states that “she is not a scholar of English or literature” but a writer. This lowers her credibility as a writer but boost her credibility as an honest, right mindful person. This passage is written to argue for those morals who cant do it by themselves. Some other audience listening could be the people who ae willing to change for their