Introduction to Literature

1
Introduction to Literature

• Lesson Seven tan
• Family Relationships

Margarette Connor
2
Contents

• Amy Tan biography
• Two Kinds discussion

3
Amy Tan

• Joy Luck Club
• (???)
• One of the most highly acclaimed writers of our
  day.
• No one will deny the pleasure of Tan's seductive
  prose

4
Tan and Immigrant Family

• Her parents escaped from Shanghai.
• Her Main Topics Generational Conflicts, War
  between the sexes, assimilation.
• Told by an Chinese-American narrator, who tries
  to find a balance between her Chinese culture and
  what the American society expects of her.
• This happened to my Egyptian students, too. They
  had to find a balance between their Egyptian
  culture and Geneva society.
• Asian-Americans face pressures also because they
  look different they are seen as ethnic others.

5
Early Life

• Born February 19, 1952 in Oakland, California.
• Grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, Her family
  lived in several communities in Northern
  California before settling in Santa Clara.

6
Parents

• Father, John, an electrical engineer and Baptist
  minister from Beijing who fled the country for
  the US.
• Mother, Daisy, who had been in an arranged
  marriage, was trying to flee with John.
• Captured, raped and thrown into jail before she
  was able to escape.
• Had to leave her daughters with their father.

7
Early success, early tragedy

• 8 years old became a published author
• wrote an essay on the public library that was
  published in a local paper.
• Father and oldest brother both died of brain
  tumors within a year of each other when she was
  in high school.

8
Move to Switzerland

• Mrs. Tan moved her two surviving children to
  Switzerland, where Amy finished high school,
  graduated from high school in Montreux,
  Switzerland.
• During this period much friction between mother
  and daughter.
• Amy Tan talks about how this was her very
  rebellious period

9
University

• Originally attended Baptist college in Oregon
• chosen by mother
• Left and followed her boyfriend to San Jose City
  College (California)
• Mother and daughter did not speak for six months
• Further defied her mother by abandoning the
  pre-med course mother wanted in order to study
  English and linguistics.
• Received her bachelor's and master's degrees in
  these fields at San Jose State University.

10
Marriage

• 1974, married the boyfriend Louis DeMattei, to
  whom shes still married.
• Now live in San Francisco and New York.

Tan and her husband
11
Earlier careers

• Studied for a doctorate in linguistics, first at
  the U of California-Santa Cruz, later at
  Berkeley.
• Left in 1976 without taking a degree
• Worked with developmentally disabled people
• With a partner, started a business writing firm,
  providing speeches for salesmen and executives
  for large corporations.

12
Professional writer

• During the early 1980s became a full-time
  freelance writer, often using non-Chinese-sounding
  pseudonyms in her work.
• Very successful, but soon found herself living
  the life of a workaholic

13
Relief in creative efforts

• Studied jazz piano
• hoping to channel the musical training forced on
  her by her parents in childhood into a more
  personal expression.
• Also began to write fiction.

14
Immediate success

• First story "Endgame," won her admission to the
  Squaw Valley writer's workshop taught by novelist
  Oakley Hall.
• 1985 story appeared in FM, literary magazine, and
  was reprinted in Seventeen.
• A literary agent was impressed enough with Tan's
  second story "Waiting Between the Trees," to take
  her on as a client and encouraged her to write an
  entire volume

15
Mother falls ill

• Promised herself that if her mother recovered
  would take her to China to see the daughter who
  had been left behind almost forty years before.
• Mrs. Tan regained her health
• departed for China in 1987.
• A revelation for Tan.
• gave her a new perspective on her often-difficult
  relationship with her mother
• inspired her to complete the book of stories she
  had promised her agent.

16
Relationship with mother improves
Tan has said that the trip to China and learning
about her mothers past have helped to heal their
relationship.
17
Joy Luck Club

• The book that was promised to the agent was The
  Joy Luck Club.
• The rest is history.

18
Major works

• Joy Luck Club 1989, also made into a film
• Kitchen Gods Wife 1991
• The Hundred Secret Senses 1995
• The Bonesetters Daughter 2001

19
Childrens works

• The Moon Lady 1992
• Sagwa,The Chinese Siamese Cat 1994

20
Magazine contributor

• Essay "Mother Tongue" was published in The
  Threepenny Review and was selected for the 1991
  edition of Best American Essays.
• Stories have appeared in
• The Atlantic,
• Grand Street,
• Lear's,
• McCall's, and others

21
Rock Bottom Remainders

• Sings in the charity in a rock band, with other
  bestselling writers, including Stephen King, Carl
  Hiaasen and, until recently, Barbara Kingsolver.

Geek Chic The bands original line-up. Fuzzy
but funny.
22
"Nobody on the bus asks, 'Where do you get your
ideas?'"

• Touring once a year as a leather-clad dominatrix
  belting out These Boots Are Made for Walking and
  Leader of the Pack satisfies a need,she
  says, to be a teenager again.

Tan with the band
23
With other Asian-American writers

• As a writer, she is often grouped with other
  Asian-American writers including
• Maxine Hong Kingston (The Woman Warrior)
• Wakako Yamauchi (Songs My Mother Taught Me).

24
Lots of two kinds

• Of daughters Those who are obedient and those
  who follow their own mind!
• Jing-Mei and Waverly Jong, her rival at
  perfection
• Chinese-American
• Living daughters, dead daughters
• Pleading Child and Perfectly Contented