Joy Luck Club: Essay

         In the book The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan is mainly about mothers and their daughters' misunderstandings and miscommunications. Some mothers and daughters may get a long, but some may not. There are sayings that, "When you're five, she's goddess. You smear your face with her lipstick and model her earrings and high heels, wanting to be just like mommy. That's the way it is until you' re about thirteen, when she suddenly becomes the most ignorant...out-of-touch creature on the planet, and you can't get far away from her. Your primary form of interaction for the next five years or so will be a single word, 'Mooooommm!' And then, somewhere between your twenties and your thirties, if you're lucky, she becomes your best friend again"(howstuffworks.com). Some may disagree due to others may have encountered different situations. For example, a mother and a daughter may just have a natural bond that is unbreakable. Another example, is mothers and daughters may not get a long as much due to either cultural or generational differences or the competition between girls. In The Joy Luck Club there are four Chinese mothers: Lindo Jong, Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, and Ying-ying St. Clair and four Chinese daughters: Waverly Jong, Jing-mei(June) Woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, and Lena St. Clair each all have problems with each other.
Waverly Jong and Jing-mei(June) Woo both have Chinese mothers that pushed them to be something that they were not happy to be. For example, Waverly Jong's mother, Lindo Jong, pushed her to be in chess tournaments. Also, when Waverly was nine she won the national chess championship. Waverly's mother was so obsessed with her competing in chess to where her brothers had to do her chore for her so she can practice. Her mother also made her stop playing with the other children. Waverly did not mind playing chess for her mother, until her mother started to show her off to around town and so she decided to run away, but of coarse she came back to her mother. In Jing-mei(June) Woo's case it is similar to Waverly's problem, her mother, Suyuan Woo, too pushed her to be something that she was not pleased to be. Her mother wanted her to be a prodigy, a Chinese Shirley Temple, also just like Waverly, so her mother made her imitate videos of Shirley Temple and memorize impressive facts. Just like Waverly, Jing-mei grew tired of her mother due to of her mother bragging about her and how she was so talented. After Jing-mei's mother gave up on her being a Chinese Shirley Temple, she then pushed her to be a pianist. When it was Jing-mei's competition day at church she decided to not practice her piece, so that she would make her mother look bad in front of the Joy Luck members. When Jing-mei did this she felt bad because she knew she had let her mother down and the fact that her mother did not say anything to her. The reason why these two mothers and daughters disagree with each other was because of generational differences because their daughters where born in America they were surrounded by different cultures, people, places, etc from their mothers.
Rose Hsu Jordan had a mother that cared for her, but she did not notice it. Rose's mother, An-mei Hsu, feels that she is not handling her marriage because her marriage was going down hill. An-mei being a mother warned Rose that her husband, Ted Jordan, was cheating on her with someone else, but she did not believe her. Then Ted sends Rose a check for tem thousand dollars with the divorce papers, when she finally realized that her mother was right she was devastated and became depressed. Rose's mother told her that she was lacking "the element of wood" meaning she is not strong by herself and depends on other people's opinion. Her mother told her this to teach her the Chinese way and for Rose to have a Chinese attitude that is inherited along the maternal line. This shows that An-mei tried to help her daughter to be a strong woman, they had a small misunderstanding due to generational differences.
Lena St. Clair's mother, Ying-ying St. Clair, always had something bad to say about anything Lena did. For example, when her mother was trying to make her finish her rice at meals, Ying-ying would tell her that, "future husband have one pock mark for every rice you not finish"(Tan 151). Lena's mother also accepted her Americanness, she did not want to die without teaching her the Chinese way. Even though Ying-ying knows that Lena will not listen to her, but she will try her best because she loves her. This shows that even though Lena will resist her mother's suggestions, her mother will still try to teach her culture.
Although all four Chinese mothers and their daughters had their own different problems, but all of their problems resulted because of cultural or generational differences. In this book The Joy Luck Club shows how immigrants from China, that have immigrated here, have daughter problems due  to they were raised in a different environment than their mothers'. Other reasons why mothers and daughters do not get along that much because of mothers wanting their daughters to do better than what they could not have done. For this being the reason the daughter feels that she is being forced to do or to be that does not please herself. There are other ways in approaching situations like this for mothers.

Latin Roots #7

Roots:
   ·duc(t), dice (to lead): conduct, reduce, education, abduct, deductive
　·fed(er), fid(e) (faith, trust): federal, confidence,  infidel, bona fide, confide
　·fin(e) (end, limit): finish, confine, infinitesimal, affinity, infinity
　·flect, flex (to blend): deflect, reflex, reflector, flexibility, genuflect, flexor

Words:
　·aqueduct: a large pipe or other conduit made to bring water from a great distance;  The aqueduct helps farmers to water their crops.
　·conducive: tending to lead, help, assist, or result in;  The conducive shepherd led his sheep into the barn.
　·definitive: completely accurate, reliable, and authoritative;  The judges definitive scores determined the winner.
　·fidelity: faithfulness to one's promises or obligations; When couples marry they must keep their fidelity towards each other.
　·fiduciary: an individual who holds something in today for another; Fiduciary cops will keep evidence for the trial.
　·finale: a "grand" conclusion, as of a performance; My team finally came to a finale team name and it was the crunks.
　·finite: limited or bordered by time or by any measurement; Their finite rule did not allow us to ask more than five questions.
　·flexuous: winding in and out;
　·inducement: anything used or given to persuade or motivate; Being a lawyer you must be a good inducement and talkative person.
　·inflection: a slight change in front or modulation of the voice, as in a point of emphasis; In Spanish yo must have an inflection when pronouncing the words with an accent.
　·perfidious: characteristic of one who would intentionally betray a faith or trust; Back then when you are perfidious to your king you are to be killed.
　·traduce: to speak falsely of; Some lawyers at time traduce about their case to prove their innocent.

Diction Handouts

Low or Informal Diction:
1.) Example of a Jargon: awash

Elevated Language or Formal Diction:
2.) a. Elongated: unusually long in relation to its width - "But at once I saw something long and pale floating very close to the ladder."
     b. Phosphorescent: is when something glows with light without becoming hot to the touch - "Before I can form a guess a faint flash of a glowing light,..."
     c. Elusive: difficult to find, catch or achieve - "... which seemed to issue suddenly from the naked body of man, flickered in the sleeping water with the silent play of summer lightning in a night sky."
     d. Cadaverous: resembling a corpse in being pale, thin, or bony - "... the long legs, the broad livid back immersed right up to that neck in the greenish pale glow."

3.) The use of an elevated language contributes to the tone by making the writing into formal writing and a higher reading level for readers. Paraphrasing the passage affects the tone by creating the writing to where all different levels of reading can understand the passage.

Abstract & Concrete Diction:
4.) Floating · Saw · Dropped · Climbed

5.)

Denotation & Connotation Diction:
6.) a. Denotation: resembling a corpse on being very pale, thin, bony
Connotation: negative feeling, sickness
     b. Denotation: of or relating to growing darkness
Connotation: negative feeling, doom
     c. Denotation: light in color
Connotation: a dead corpse
     d. Denotation: glowing with light
Connotation: bright
     e. Denotation: causing horror or fear
Connotation: scary doom
     f. Denotation: having no head
Connotation: mindless
     g. Denotation: like a fish
Connotation: cold, slimy

Latin Roots #6

Roots:
-corp(or) (body): corpse, corporation, corps, corpuscle, corporeal
-cred (to believe, to trust): credo, credit, discredit, credence
-cur(r), cuts, course (to run, to flow): current, excursion, discourse
-dic(t) (to speak, to say): diction, indication, edict, jurisdiction, dictionary

Words:
-benediction: the invocation of a divine blessing, as at the close of a religious service; a blessing or star of blessedness; The purpose of a benediction is to not bring destruction to your enemies.
-concourse: a running or flowing together; a broad public walkway or hallway; A long concourse extended gin the main lobby of the airport check-in counters.
-concurrent: occurring at three same time; meeting or acting together; Things that occur concurrently happen at the and same time.
-corporal:  relates to the physical body; Corporal actions do not solve problems.
-corpulent: very stout; fleshy and obese; fat; Corpulent people are not slender.
-credibility: the quality of being believable or trustworthy; A person with absolute credibility can be easily believed.
-credulity: the(naive) willingness to believe too easily without proof; Simpleminded credulity can lead one to believe incredible tales.
-cursory: don't in a superficial or hasty manner; A cursory examination is not as thorough as it might have been.
-dictum: an authoritative or maxim; Every actor or actresses have their dictum.
-incorporate: to form into one body our functioning unit; to combine several different things into a whole; To incorporate is not to take things apart.
-incredulous: not believing, skeptical, or doubting; An incredulous smile is unlikely to suggest skepticism.
-indicative: characteristic of or very much like, suggestive; Restless sleep and bad dream may be indicative of a troubled mind.

Literature Analysis- The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Part I: The book The Memory Keeper's Daughter written by Kim Edwards is about a married couple who had fraternal twins, but the girl had down syndrome and so the father, David, gave orders to the nurse, Caroline, to take the baby girl away. David had told his wife, Norah, their baby boy, Paul, was the only one to survive. Caroline bring such a kind hearted person did not want to leave the baby girl at a care place, so she kept the baby as het own and named her Pheobe. As Pheobe grew up she finally found out about her real parents and her fraternal twin brother. Caroline brought her to Norah, and she was shocked, but after David died of heart attack them three, Norah, Paul, and Pheobe lived together to catch up.

Part II: The main theme of this novel was think before you act because it will affect your future. I believe that the author chose this topic due to the possibility she was a child with sickness and was declined from the family of she might have been a mother of a special needs kid. I also believe that Edwards chose the father to decline the cold because maybe her father declined her or maybe because a newly father might have gotten scared.

Part III: I think the protagonist is dynamic braid she changes when she found out about her real parents. The protagonist is also round because she is always happy. David is another main character of the story because he is the father of Pheobe, the main character.

Part IV: The nurse symbolized the child's savior because Caroline basically rescues Pheobe from living in the care house and not ever knowing her real parents. I believe it reveals that that family of Pheobe did not know she exists except for the father.

Part V: I chose this book because I was suppose to read this book for my first assignment, but I got lazy and read The Giver that is how I came to read this book, The Memory Keeper's Daughter. What made me keep reading was when I found out that father gave away a special needs child.

Part VI: I can connect when David and Norah had babies to my cousin just had her baby. I can also connect my dad taking on a struggling kid to Caroline taking in a Pheobe with be in.

Part VII: The thing I will always remember is to take in a special needs kid when I get older.

Greek Drama: Out of Ritual Questions

1) The dancing choruses of worshippers began to competing for prizes like a bull or a goat.

2) As many as fourteen thousand spectators gathered in the open-air Theater of Dionysos to watch playwrights chosen by the city magistrates competed for prizes in tragedy and comedy.

3) These masks had exaggerated mouthpieces that amplified the actor's voices-an ancient solution to the problem resolved by microphones.

4) For Greek audiences watching Antigone, dispenser did not come from their anxiety admit what would harken next, because they already knew the story. Suspense came from their knowledge of things the characters on stage did not know.

5) Horrified by this prediction, they gave their baby to a shepherd with orders to leave the infant to die on a lonely mountainside with his ankles pinned together.

6) "What creature goes on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?"

7) Oedipus' children were Polyneices, Eteocles, Antigone, and Ismene.

8) Jocasta's brother, Creon, took over Thebes.

9) Crown considered Eteocles an ally and gave him a hero's burial, he considered Polyneices a traitor, so he decreed that his body be left unburied, to rot in the sun outside the city gates.

Antigone Quick Write

If I somehow time traveled to an island with my two dead brothers and an alive sister and my uncle declared himself as king. Also, my uncle only buried the least favorite brother of mine, but not my other brother because they fought and killed each other. I would do everything in my power to bury my other loving brother. First, I would try to convince my uncle to bury both of them by begging him. For example, I would probably bribe him with money and treasures that I will search for. Of that does not happen I will ask my sister to help me bury our brother and if she refuses I will try to manipulate her by saying that she is a disgrace to our family. Also, I would try to make her help me by telling her that I will protect her from harm and from being killed. Finally, if nothing works I will do it myself even if it kills me.