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All students are required to comment TWICE a week. A week goes from Monday to Sunday. A comment can be a response to my or others' posts --- or a new post. All posts must be relevant to class discussions and assignments. Each post should be 1-3 paragraphs. Remember, it is OK to disagree with one another, but we must always be RESPECTFUL of one another.
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All three parables display a theme that is will go in the next stories. For the first parable, the swan is a symbol of hope and remembrance of her country as she leaves on the boat to the United States. This is the only thing important left from her country, so she takes pride in it. The woman tries to be like the swan, strong in bold, when it is taken away from her. Overall, it explains that in the next stories, the mothers will talk about their experiences in loosing something important to them, or anything that involves symbolism of their country.
In the second parable, a mother tries to tell her daughter something she should not do. The daughter disobeys what her mother says, symbolizing rebellion against the woman that knows the best of life. This shows that in the next stories, the daughters will ignore their mother's advice, and consequences will arise for their disobedient actions.
In the third parable, the mother tries to tell her daughter a belief that she thinks is true. The mother tries to fix it, and when she does, the daughters life goes well. This symbolizes obedience and trust. Later in the stories, the daughters will trust their mothers and positive results will form.
In all three parables, some of the same themes and conflicts are shared throughout. In all of the stories there is the same language barrier throughout all of them. In the first story, the mother can not tell her daughter her good intentions for her in America. In the second story, the daughter thinks her mother is stupid because she is saying things from a book in Chinese, and in the third story the daughter thinks that the mother's superstitions she learned in China are stupid and do not work. The stories are all listed in chronicalogical order of the lives of the mother and daughter. They also get more Americanilized as the stories go on.
Something that is common in all three stories is the conflicts constantly occuring between mother and daughter. For instance, in the first story, the mother tells the swan of her hopes and dreams for her Americanized daughter, and for her wish that her daughter will realize how the mother just wanted her daughter to have a Chinese nature and American independence and prosperity. However, although her daughtr did gain the American independence and prosperity, it was implied that the daughter did not want to be considered the daughter of a chinese immigrant, and wanted to forget where she originally came from. in the second story, the mother warns her Americanized young daughter that she will be hurt if she rides her bicycle around the corner, and as the daughter runs away from the mothers warning, she falls down, proving her mother right. In the third parable, the daughter is moving into a new condo, and the mother is warning her daughter not to put the mirror at the foot of the bed, because of an old fashioned notion that the happiness from their marriage would bounce the opposite way. The daughter, being americanized, is irritated by these warnings, so the mother pulls out a mirror she had brought as a housewarming present, and helps restore and multiply the households luck. In all three of these tales, the good intentions of the mother is very apparent, and shows that she does love her daughter, but shows it in a different way, by giving her the push she needs to live on her own. she does want her daughter to be like her, but she realizes how her daughter was raised as an american, and finds ways to compromise with that.
All three parables exemplify similar themes which can be applicable to the mother and daughter's stories. One unifying theme throughout the parables is a language/cultural barrier, as Celia mentioned. The communication between the parents and children is obscured by the lack of understanding with each culture. In the first parable, the immigrant coming to America was unable to communicate her true love and hopes for her daughter. The feather of the swan was symbolic hope and being someone more than expected. However, her inability to speak English created a literal language barrier between the Chinese mother and the Americanized daughter. She couldn't fully express her intentions nor the true value of the feather.
This barrier is carried into the next parable. The mother tried to warn her daughter of the dangerous risks when riding her bike without her mother watching her. She explained that she will fall and her mother will not hear her. However, the little girl was skeptical and didn't believe her mother. When her mother tried to explain these risks existed in the book of "The Twenty Six Malignant Gates", the daughter wrote it off thinking her mother way lying. She thought that the book was a lie and that her mother's worries were just superstition. Once again, there is a language (or cultural) barrier between them.
In the third parable, her mother was trying to ensure that the mirror would bring good peach blossom luck, or fertility, to the daughter. However, when the mother tried to fix the mirror, she believed it was just a stupid superstition, and made no impact on her fertility. She didn't understand the culture of her mother and was unable to appreciate the help her mother was trying to lend.
All three parables share a common theme which is the conflict between mother and daughter. In each of the parables their is either a language conflict, a cultural conflict, and a conflict of opinion. In the first parable there is the language conflict because her the mother isn't able to tell her daughter the significance of the swan feather because she doesn't speak English. In the second parable it shows the conflict of opinion, because the mother tells her daughter not to do something but she goes against her mother due to the fact that she has her own opinion.
Finally in the last parable the mother tells her daughter not to ride her bike around the corner and that it is written in "The Twenty Six Malignant Gates", this examples the cultural barrier because the daughter of course goes against her mother because she doesn't understand the meaning of the book. In conclusion although there might be different conflicts found, in each parable there is some sort of conflict between mother and daughter.
All three parables portrey a common theme of barriers between Chinese and American Culture. This is a theme that seems to appear throughout the book. The first parable has the barrier of the differences of languages. The mother, a chinese immigrant, had a great swan that was taken from her at Ammerican immigration; all the woman was able to hold onto was one feather of the swan. She wanted to give the feather to her American daughter, when she had one. She wanted to tell her all that the feather meant to her to her daughter. The woman was unable to due to the fact that she spoke very little english and her daughter only spoke english. She could not explain the significance of the one feather to her daughter.
In the second story the Chinese mother tells her daughter not to ride her bike around the corner. When the daughter asks why she says it is because it says so in a Chinese book called "The Twenty Six Malignant Gates". When the daughter asks to see this book, the mother tells her it is only in chinese and she would not undrstand it. This shows both a cultural and language barrier. The chinese culture has alot of supersticions and myths that you do not see in american culture.
The third story has the theme of a cultural barrier. As I mentioned above, the chinese culture is filled with supersticions. In this parable, the mother tells her daughter that having a mirror facing your bed will give you bad fertility. She then proceeds to fix the mirror and put it above the head board of the bed. The mother sees this as a thing she must do because in her culture that is said to effect fertility and she wants a child. The daughter on the other hand sees it more as a neusence than a neccesity. This is a cultural barrier in which one culture doesn't understand another, and the differences can cause problems.
All three parables are common in themes and conflicts. One of the common conflict in all three parables are the cultural differences. In the first parable, the mother brought her daughter to America so that she would grow up fufulling all of her dreams and leading a better life with more opportunities than she would of in China. This move turned her child into an all american girl, who acted totally different from her mother. In the second parable, the mother believes in a book called "The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates", which mention all of the bad things that can happen to a person. Her american daughter, however, does not really believe in this chinese book, because she was brought up in the US with a totally different cultural background. In the third parable, the daughter's mother tells her that having a mirror at the foot of a bed will make marriage's happiness "bounce back". Because of the difference in culture, the daughter does not believe one word of what her mother is saying. The main conflicts are the cultural and language barriers between the mother and daughter in the parables.
The common theme in all three parables is that the mother wants to do whatever she can to ensure tha her daughter will have the best life ever. In the first parable, the mother moved from China to America for the hopes of raising a daughter with unlimited opportunities. In the second parable, the mother was warning her daughter not to ride around the corner of the street, because she will get hurt. She only said this to keep her daughter safe, and not to ruin her daughters fun. In the third parable, the mother told the daughter that it was bad luck to place a mirror at the foot of the bed, only so that her daughter would have good luck and happiness in her marriage, and not to be a pain and make her move it.
All of the three parables have connecting themes and conflicts that are present throughout the whole novel in the stories between mother and daughter.
The three parables that are in the book are both a prelude to what will happen in the next few stories and display how there is such a difference between the two generations. The first parable is about the swan and how the mother had such good intentions for her younger daughter, and wanted her to have a better life than she. Then, in the stories that follow this parable, it tells the stories of all the mothers and what their childhood was like in China. They also display the hopes that they have to give their chldren better lives than theirs so they don't have to suffer as much. The second parable is about how the daughter disobeys what her mother tells her not to, and ends up getting hurt. This shows how the daughters will not want to obey their mothers and may wind up getting hurt. The stories after the second parable are about the young children and how they grew up. Each of the children is different in personality and talent, but they are all united in how they do not wish to fufill their mother's expectations and want their own lives. The third parable is about how the children are getting older and the mothers are angry at their daughters for disobeying them and not doing as they were told. The stories following this parable are about how the children are getting older and are married, and how that part of their lives is falling apart. All of the children are having failed relationships and can never seem to find peace with their husbands, their mothers, or in themselves.
Within all three parables, there are things that are common between them. One thing that appears though all three of them is the language barrier between the mother and the daughter. This language barrier prevents the mother and daughter from having one continuously flowing conversation that is easy to understand and non-interrupted. Another thing that runs through all three of them is the "Americanization" that is coming up through the Chinese-American daughters. They grow up unappreciative of all their mothers have done for them in the past and all of their Chinese culture and background.
In all three parables, there is a common link of good intentions. The mother is always trying to do what's best for her child, even if the child does not see it that way. They also have an issue of a language barrier. the miscommunication makes the child unable to understand what her mother is trying to convey to her, such as her wishes for the best.
Each parable has a bit of a poetic touch to it. There is a lesson to be learned in each and they are written in a pretty way, like the mothers, unlike the daughters.
Many things are common in the three parables. They all give you a sneak preview of what will happen in the next section of the book. The themes in all of the parables is the relationship of the mother to her kids. This is also a conflict. The mother struggles to relate, and carry on with her intentions to her kids. Also, the age of the kids in the parables relate directly to the age of the kids in the actual stories. I found this interesting because the forshadowing was almost too obvious that you would never see it coming, but its just a simple parable that has a lot of meaning. The parables also can show good things too. In the third parable the mothers and daughters fix a problem, then things get better. this happens in the actual stories too.
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