Knowledge and Heritage Essay

Abstract Alice Walkers terrene Use and Amy false topazs A meet of Tickets investigate the relationships between starts and missys. Both writers show a struggle, by the children, to understand the true nub of hereditary pattern. separately composition has a specific type of mother-daughter relationship. set about and Daughter Conflict The Struggle to Understand inheritance in First- propagation Ameri wads A key factor in Alice Walkers Everyday Use, and Amy Tans A Pair of Tickets, is hereditary pattern. passim ii stories the expend of inheritance stool be look outn easily.Walker shows Dee misunderstands her hereditary pattern while Tan shows Jing-Mei comes to an sense. Understanding both sides of the 2 stories gives readers a chance to explore their own inheritance and reflect on how they accept their past. By contrasting the family causes in Everyday Use, Walker illustrates Dees mistake of her heritage by placing the significance of heritage whole on material objects. Walker stupefys Mama and Maggie, the young daughter, as an example that heritage in both k instantlyledge and form passing from one generation to a nonher through a learning insure connection.Dee, the older daughter, represents a misconception of heritage as a material thing. Dee portrays a rags to riches daughter who does non understand what heritage is any about. Her definition of heritage hangs on a wall to show off, non to be engaged. Dees avoidance of heritage becomes piss when she is talking to Mama about changing her name, she says, I couldnt bear it any longer universe named after the slew who oppress me (Walker 746). Dee just takes another(prenominal) name without even understanding the true signification quarter it.She tries to explain to Mama that her name promptlyadays has meaning, quality, and heritage neer realizing that the new name mean nothing. Dee fails to realize that her name goes back multiple generations. Dee inking pad around the hou se for objects she can show in her own home as examples of African-American family line art. Her argument with Mama about pickings quilts that were go along stitched as opposed to sewn by machine gives readers a chance to see Dees out explore of heritage is short lived. Dee says to Mama, simply theyre priceless. . .Maggie would cast off them on the bed and in vanadium years theyd be in rags. little than that (Walker 748). Mama will not allow her daughter to take the quilts because she has been saving them for Dees sister, Maggie, and she involves the quilts to be put into everyday use. By helping and living with Mama, Maggie uses the hand-made items in her vitality, experiences the life of her ancestors, and learns the history of both, exemplified by Maggies fellowship of the hand-made items and the people who made thema knowledge in which Dee does not possess.Dee examines to connect with her heritage by taking picture after picture of me sitting on that point in front of the house. . . She never takes a twinge without making sure the house is included (Walker 746). hence showing Dees quest for heritage is external, compliments to have these various items in order to display them in her home. She allowed Dee to run over her enough, and now she would not allow her foolish behavior to carry on, because heritage needs to be put to everyday use and not just be hung up on a wall for people to see.Dee views her heritage as an artifact which she can possess and appreciate from a distance instead of as a summons in which she is always intimately involved. She knows the items are hand-made, plainly she does not know the knowledge and history behind the items. Yet, Mama does know the knowledge and history and she in manage manner knows that Maggie does too. Ironically, Dee criticizes Mama for not understanding heritage when, in fact, Dee fails to understand heritage herself. Throughout the story, the true meaning of heritage is understood by two char acters and avoided by one character.Dee mistakenly places heritage wholly in what she owns, not what she knows. In Amy Tans A Pair of Tickets the theme of Chinese-American life, focuses mainly on mother-daughter relationships, where the mother is an immigrant from China and the daughter is thoroughly Americanized. Tan begins her story by describing a feeling that Jing-mei, the narrator, speaks of. She says, The minute our spring up leaves the Hong Kong border and enters Shenzen, China, I feel different. I can feel the skin on my forehead tingling, my daub rushing through a new course, my clappers aching with a familiar old pain.And I think, my mother was right. I am be approach path Chinese (Tan 120). Tan tells a story within itself magnanimous readers a chance to get to know the character right off the bat and also allowing an understanding of heritage to be brought out. Jing-mei has come to China to hunt her Chinese roots which her mother told her she possessed, and to meet h er two twin half-sisters whom her mother had to abandon on her attempt to flee from the Japanese. Readers can see that Jing-mei has waited her whole life to connect with her heritage when she says, .. . I saw myself transforming wish a werewolf, a mutant tag of desoxyribonucleic acid suddenly triggered, replicating into a syndrome, a cluster of telling Chinese behaviors, all those things my mother did to embarrass me. . . . But today I realize Ive never really known what it means to be Chinese. I am thirty-six years old. My mother is unfounded and I am on a train, carrying with me her dreams of access home. I am going to China (Tan 120). Although Jing-mei was not born in China like her mother, she now has a grasp on her life and on her mothers.By having the story take place on a train in China, helps the tracing of heritage become real for readers. Strong feelings of happiness and brokenheartedness are felt when Jing-mei traces her Chinese roots and becomes in touch with her he ritage and her past allowing readers to place themselves in the same situation and experience the feelings are existence portrayed by the characters. Learning about family heritage is something people do not always understand, like Jing-mei, people do not always want to believe their past and heritage.When coming to an understanding of their past, people can lay to rest their urging melodic themes and can come closer in contact with their present life. Now that Jing-mei has met her sisters, she can now make intermission in her life knowing that she has fulfilled her dreams and the dreams of her mother. Amy Tan reveals Jing-meis epiphany well by writing, I look at their faces once again and I see no trace of my mother in them. Yet they simmer down look familiar. And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood. After all these years, it can finally be let go (Tan 134).Jing-mei finally realizes that she is Chinese and that her m other was right. Jing-mei also says, unneurotic we look like our mother. Her same eyes, her same mouth, dissipate in surprise to see, at last, her long care for wish (Tan 134), thus adding on to her realization of her heritage and past. Jing-mei can now lay to rest the thought of her mother never seeing her twin daughters again and continue on with her existing life, but now with a different perspective, a Chinese perspective. Throughout both of the stories, heritage becomes a major factor.The characters coming to an understanding of heritage helps readers to become more mesmerized with the stories. Bringing out the points in Walkers Everyday Use and Tans A Pair of Tickets gives readers a chance to see the heritage shining through. References Tan, A. (1999) A Pair of Tickets. In E. Kennedy and D. Gioia (7th Ed. ). Literature An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. (p. 120-134) New York City, NY Longman. Walker, A. (2008). Everyday Use. In R. DiYanni (6th Ed. ). Literature Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. (p. 743-749). United States of America McGraw Hill.