Amy Tan Literary Analysis

Amy Tan: The Interweaving of Her Life and Her Writing What inspires writers to create their masterpieces is interesting to know. Very often, many novels and stories are influenced or inspired by different events and aspects that their authors have in life. An Asian-American novelist and storyteller Amy Tan is not an exception. Amy Ruth Tan (or her Chinese name En-mei) was born in the family of Chinese immigrants February 19, 1952, in Oakland, California, and she spent her childhood and youth in the San Francisco Bay area (“Amy Tan”, Newsmakers). After several major changings, Amy Tan decided to be a writer and began her writing career in 1987. About two years later, she wrote her first novel The Joy Luck Club which immediately became

Amy Tan incorporated this special mother-daughter bond in her story “Best Quality” and took Jing-Mei’s place as a daughter. The story tells about a mother Suyuan who just like Daisy wanted her daughter to be an outstanding person and a daughter Jing-Mei who like Amy wants to write and live her American life. At the story, Jing-Mei, her mother, and the Jongs family are having Chinese New Year dinner at which Suyuan serves crabs cooked by herself, and after finishing eating those crabs, guests start having conversations with each other. Later, Waverly Jong, who is the same age as Jing-Mei, and Jing-Mei argues about the work that Jing-Mei did for Waverly’s tax company. At the end of this argument, Suyuan takes Waverly’s place and supports her opinion on Jing-Mei’s lack of style and poor writing skills; Suyuan agrees that her daughter is not sophisticated enough as Waverly who is a very successful tax attorney (Tan 197-207). As it can be seen, Amy Tan felt that she was not sophisticated enough because she did not become a neurosurgeon like her mother wanted. In the story, all Chinese mothers wanted their Chinese-American daughters to become doctors or businessmen and to be better than others. When Jing-Mei and Waverly were little, Suyuan wanted her daughter to be like Waverly, and there always was competition between them. Even though they are both grown women now, the

All of it helped her to create this magnificent story which gives the reader a chance to feel how it was to be an Asian-American woman and deal with hardships of life. Often, great stories and novels are inspired by