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Old School By Tobias Wolff And American Born Chinese By Gene Luen Yang

846 Words4 Pages

Loneliness has the ability to substantially impact individuals as they are put in a unique experience that affects the way they try to shape their identities and influence their respective communities. In both "Old School" by Tobias Wolff and "American Born Chinese" by Gene Luen Yang, the characters' positions as outsiders grant them a distinctive perspective that sets them apart from the rest of their communities. By grappling with the conflicts that arise from their differences and feelings of loneliness, they undergo experiences that mold their identities which lead them to transformative change. As the characters attempt to overcome the obstacles that stem from their position, they strive to make an impact within their communities by embracing …show more content…

This spurs his desire for acceptance and a sense of belonging which leads him to engage in acts that would become a conflict for himself in the long run. The primary conflict he faces is when he plagiarizes a story in a literary competition which would in turn lead to his expulsion from the school and revocation to attend Columbia University. The narrator plagiarizes with the hopes of gaining recognition and making his name known throughout the school. This problem causes the narrator to test his own integrity and honesty as he is forced to face the resulting consequences. In addition to this, the narrator’s new profound understanding of his personal integrity translates to the way he overcomes his conflicts as he creates opportunities for personal development and growth. After embarking on his new journey as a writer, he begins to take in his negative experiences and confront them with his own personal identity where he no longer obtains the position of an outsider. Things begin to come together for the narrator as he surprisingly receives an invitation to revisit his old school as a writer. Before he …show more content…

Due to the cultural differences that set him apart, he struggles to develop a character that truly represents himself in a community where he feels like an outsider. His intense desire for acceptance results in him adjusting his behavior in the way he acts and appears. From perming his hair to refraining from eating dumplings, he is drawn towards the constant pressure to adhere to the American stereotypes. This initial conflict of not embracing his heritage became a further internal conflict when he adopts a disposition of a stereotypical American boy named Danny. However, this conflict molds Jin Wang’s identity as he learns the importance of embracing his heritage and being more self-aware. Trying to help Jin Wang understand the importance of identity, the Monkey King says, “I would have saved myself from five hundred years’ imprisonment beneath a mountain of rock had I only realized how good it is to be a monkey” (Yang 223). Gradually, Jin Wang was able to break free from societal norms and find his true self instead of one that isn’t him with the help of the Monkey King. He begins to embrace his American-Chinese identity as he accepts who he really is without conforming to societal expectations as he did before. Instead of holding fast to the American stereotypes, he now challenges them by helping those who

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In turn, setting the tone for the entire storyline, single-handedly one of the most important plot points in the book. The nadir of the Monkey King’s storyline in American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang represents the rise and fall of power, which is portrayed through the use of visual rhetorical devices such as image scale and border and fill effects. This portrayal of the Monkey King’s downfall highlights the inevitability of life’s ups and downs and how it relates to the human experience. The first step

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Internal conflict The Monkey King seems to experience a lot of emotional turmoil based on his identity, this is attributed to his almost split personality. This duality of self seems to cause a no end of grief for The Monkey King. On the other hand Jin seems to suffer from some kind of self loathing or self hatred, based on his race and how his cousin makes him feel about his race. He outright tells us this at times.

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The colliding cultures that the Monkey King, Jin Wang, Danny and Wei Chen have all have something in common, they want to fit in. Wei Chen changes from a happy and loyal person to a heartbroken self , revealing the importance of self-acceptance. First, Wei Chen aspired to follow his father's, the Monkey King, steps and become an emissary, this would make him a human. The Monkey king reveals the rules to Wei Chen, “Emissaries of Tze-yo-tzuh serve him and all that he loves” (Yang 218), which were humans.

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After all this the narrator realized that when he submitted something it needed to be his own work. Susan, the character the had her poem plagiarized, ended up taking the event positively. “Plagiarism, not imitation, is the sincerest form of flattery” (157). After this event the narrator became an authentic writer. Without the school taking the narrator’s future into account, him becoming a writer could have never

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Did you know that two-thirds of the young population feel pressured to look a certain way? American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang is a graphic novel about Jin Wang, an average teenager juggling his high school social life with his home life. By using character and composition, Yang emphasizes transformation through the change in Jin’s actions and determination, indicating he feels pressured to assimilate to feel socially accepted. Through character development, Yang depicts Jin’s transformation through his actions as in American-born Chinese.

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In the novel “American Born Chinese” by Gene Luen Yang (2006), it talks about three different people’s stories. The author starts off with telling a story about a monkey called the Monkey King, who lives in the jungle, seeking for higher power to become considered a god in the book. The author also tells a story about an American born Chinese boy named Jin Wang, who moves from San Francisco and struggles with fitting in at a new school. The last story the author tells is about a boy named Danny who has his cousin Chin-Kee from China visit every year. Danny ends up struggling to keep his reputation in adequate shape at school after his cousin visits causing him to switch schools often.

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American Born Chinese is a story about Jin, an American with Chinese roots, who struggles with his identity - self-conscious about how he looks, sounds, and acts. Jin divides into three different identities; Jin his overall identity, Danny his typical American side, and Chin-Kee his racist stereotype Chinese side. This book is split into three different stories that represent the three different identities, The Monkey King’s story, Jin’s story, and Danny and Chin-Kee’s story. In the graphic novel, American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang uses symbolism and literary elements to illustrate struggling with your identity can lead to a better understanding of who you are and where you came from. Jin is faced with racial discrimination, not fitting

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However, it still exists in our community and we see it everywhere. American Born Chinese by Luen Yang is a graphic novel that has a large idea behind the book which Transformation and understanding identity. American Born Chinese consists of three different storylines and each storyline has a different character that tries to fit into society and also be able to transfer back to his culture. The three main characters are ashamed of who they are. According

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He still maintains his Chinese “gang loyalty” (134) even though he is excluded by students from the same ethnic group. In another word, he does not reject his Chinese identity, but he chooses to approach it in a different way. The author points out that Chan attaches great importance to his survival spirit when it comes to cooking, and he “would never give this up for Jennifer,” (141) it becomes obvious to readers that Chan is not unaware of the conflicts happened to him, on the other hand, he knows how to solve the problem and is conscious about the social aspiration all the way, but he just chooses not to obey the mainstream norms. When his survival instinct collides with the social acceptance, he goes with his own way to

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He loses a good friend along the way, that alter him into making better decisions. He meets a couple of girls that affects him remarkably in choosing what he must do with his life. With the help of his grandparents, specifically his grandma, he is given reassurance that guide him home. Through

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The Power of Identity Despite varying circumstances, both visually and contextually, the theme portraying that extreme measures are often taken when others are not accepting of an identity is developed by actions in American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang. In the beginning of the book, The Monkey King is more or less serene and collected. At first the book shows some scenes on pages 10 and 11, where he is training peaceful, simple disciplines, and as stated on page 10, “The monkey king ruled with a firm but gentle hand.”

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In conclusion, American Born Chinese successfully uses plot elements to have multiple effects on readers. All three stories use parallel plots because they are different perspectives and stories put together to create a bigger story. Jin-Wang’s story uses foreshadowing by having details that relate to the Monkey King. Lastly, the Monkey King’s story uses conflict and keeps the readers wanting to know how the conflict is dealt with. All three plot elements were successfully used to create emotions within the

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Throughout the entire novel, the mothers and daughters face inner struggles, family conflict, and societal collision. The divergence of cultures produces tension and miscommunication, which effectively causes the collision of American morals, beliefs, and priorities with Chinese culture which

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It is his exploration of the change within him. It is his struggle to find who he has become as a result of the change. It is a quest to create a meaning out of meaninglessness. In the chapters leading to the conclusion, we shall see to where the question leads him, and whether he finds an answer to this

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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.

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