Amy Tan Back Of The Bus Summary

In Back of the Bus Mary Melbane conveys a message about the fragility of custom, and how what seemed enshrined forever can change in an instant, through a youthful memory of a bus ride in the dying days of segregation. Melbane lived through a time where the life was rife with racial injustice, and its through this experience she learned the lesson that not all things she believed to be "the way things are". In the story she demonstrates the message through the description and dialogue that punctuate the experience. Mebane realized, through the watching two other passengers on her bus stand up against the age old custom of handing away their seat to a person of the white race, that change is possible even for the things that seem inalterable, and she uses this experience as the base of her narration that amplifies this message.

Through the description of a very amusing culture clash of a Christmas eve dinner, a young Amy struggles with balancing her feelings for the food she loves and the American pastors son for whom she has feelings for. In the short run Amy felt only she shame, she was ashamed of her culture, and ashamed of the customs, and she wanted to be something she couldn't be, something which tortured her. However the importance of this story comes from the advice of her mother, who tells her that she can be both, that she needs to find a balance between the two identities that she is attached to, identities of American and Chinese culture, "the only shame is to be ashamed" . That is underlying message of the narration, and it's through this experience Tan demonstrates the problematic encounters if one doesn't heed that message or understand its