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Character Analysis Of Jin Wang In 'American Born Chinese'

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In American Born Chinese, Jin Wang changes immensely from the beginning to the end of the story. At the beginning of the story, Jin Wang wants to fit in and break apart from his Chinese Heritage. By the end of the story, because of various external and internal conflicts, Jin has learned to accept his Chinese heritage. He has also experienced anger, happiness, regret, and guilt that all got him to the point where he learned to accept his heritage. Jin Wang’s internal conflict is he wants to fit in, but to do so he must forget his Chinese heritage. This is seen in two incidents when Jin tells Wei-Chen to, “stop acting like such an F.O.B” (89). The other incident is when Jin sees Greg, a boy that Amelia is talking to, has a curly perm and he …show more content…

Wei-Chen opposes Jin in the first half of the story by embracing his heritage and not running from it like Jin. However, Jin realizes that Wei-Chen doesn’t care about what others think of his heritage or fitting in and that only fuels Jin’s desire to fit in even more because he doesn’t want to become like Wei-Chen. In other words, Wei-Chen brings out Jin’s fear that he could one day accept his heritage and Jin doesn’t ever want that to happen. Therefore, with every action that Jin takes he is trying to run farther away from his heritage. In the second half of the story, Wei-Chen opposes Jin by asking him why he kissed Suzy and this brings out Jin’s anger and belief that he is …show more content…

Jin manages to ask Amelia to hang out with him and they go see a movie together. However, the next day at school Greg asks Jin to not go out with Amelia again because he is worried about who she is hanging out with and Jin replies saying that he guesses he will stop asking her out. Therefore, Greg is Jin’s antagonist because he prevents Jin from accomplishing his goal of asking Amelia out again. Jin gets angry at Greg later that school day and decides to go ask Amelia out again, however, as soon as he says hello to Amelia and sees Greg there he immediately loses his bravery and walks away. At this point, Jin is confused and kisses Suzy while Wei-Chen is in math circles. Suzy slaps him and walks off. Later that night, Wei-Chen shows up at Jin’s house and asks, “Why-what is a reason…why you kiss” (189)? Jin says back to Wei-Chen that, “Maybe I just don’t think you’re right for her all right” (191)? As a result, Wei-Chen punches Jin and stays up late that night thinking about what happened and decides that he said the

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