Comparing Mother Tongue And Only Daughter, By Amy Tan

Two contrasting essays, “Mother Tongue” and “Only Daughter” were written by two talented writers, who also shared several similarities when growing up with their parents. Amy Tan, author of “Mother Tongue” gained inspiration for her writing from her mother; referring to the English she spoke as broken, or fractured. Furthermore, Tan goes on about the language barriers between her mom and society during her childhood and how she was never understood by most of the public. Henceforth, the author closes the essay explaining that the reader she would imagine reading her stories was none other than her mother. “And the reader I decided upon was my mother, because these were stories about mothers. So with this reader in mind—and in fact she did read my early drafts—I began to write stories using all the Englishes I grew up with” (Tan 61). This concludes that the writer’s mother played an important role in her writing.

Her writing goes on to elucidate not being recognized for the potential she was worth; while her sons were given praise and such, she was just a daughter. Cisneros also mentioned that she wanted to impress her father with her writing. “In a sense, everything I have ever written has been for him, to win his approval even though I know my father can't read English words” (Cisneros 1). Finally, she recalls the time she flew to Chicago to see her family, handing her father a translated version of her stories, how he thoroughly read it and asking where he could get additional copies for the