ipl-logo

Analysis Of Gish Jen's Story 'The Third Dumpster'

978 Words4 Pages

The Third Dumpster Gish Jens story, “The Third Dumpster” follows two second-generation Chinese-Americans; Goodwin and Morehouse. They are in the process of fixing an old house for their elderly Chinese parents, because they refuse to live in facility. An idea explained by their unwillingness to eat Western food. Throughout the story, Goodwin and Morehouse are forced to face their values, which are not Chinese, end of story – but neither American, end of story, and the identity problems that arise from that. The plot commences with Goodwin and Morehouse buying a house, because their elderly parents cannot continue to live in their current house, given that they can no longer climb the stairs. The two brothers considered letting them move in …show more content…

For example: “Now he scouted carefully, in his old Corolla wagon, eating Oreos”. The fact, that the language is intellectual and grammatically perfect, indicates that Goodwin actually possess the capability to become American, end of story. However, when speaking to his family, the narrative becomes more informal and sometimes quite clumsy: “He knew too that Morehouse knew Goodwin to be against the use of illegals, and that Morehouse knew Goodwin knew Morehouse knew that.” Which could be evidence of that Goodwin feels stuck between his identity as American and his family’s identity as foreigners. The style of writing also features some rhetorical devices. The most prominent is that every time the difference between their parents and Goodwin’s ex-wife, is that they are Chinese end of story or American end of story. This highlights Goodwin’s problem, and makes it evident that he does not think it is possible to have an identity or nationality that is not as clear as “end of story” states. This varying language makes the short story seem highly-contrasting, and this may be to highlight the contrast in the content of the story and a contrast in Goodwin’s

Show More
Related
341 Words | 2 Pages

Doing the right thing can be challenging. In the short story “Your Move” by Eve Bunting. James, the protagonist, is a character who is untrustworthy. James is a boy who lives with his little brother and mother. James has to take care of his brother Isaac when their mom is at work.

Read More
906 Words | 4 Pages

“‘Cooped Up’ with ‘Sad Trash’” Analysis Dr. Johanna M. Smith, the author of the scholarly article “‘Cooped Up’ with ‘Sad Trash’”, is an associate professor of English at the University of Texas at Arlington. In her article “‘Cooped Up’ with ‘Sad trash’” her approach to the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is one that takes a feminist viewpoint. In her article, Smith divides her argument into two sections, one that focuses more on the notion of an unpayable debt of gratitude, and the other that focuses on Victor Frankenstein’s transition from alchemical science to chemistry and how that relates to the “tensions and conflicts of contemporary gendered science” (324). Both articles, although presented as two separate entities, flow together magnificently and

Read More
149 Words | 1 Pages

J.C. Burke uses the narrative structure of prologue to show the protagonist, Tom Brennan’s, Australian voice in the novel. Tom’s voice is loud and clear in the simple yet compelling prologue. The brief prologue is powerfully reminiscent, engaging the readers interest when the Brennan family close “the front door of our home for the last time” The deceptively simple language communicates shame and regret and the rawness of pain is emphasised by the recurring reference to the need for silence ,’’down, down we glided in silence’’ . The prologues abruptly ends with the forthright affirmation of identity ‘’My name is Tom Brennan and this is my story” and the first person narrative really highlights the voice of the protagonist. It creates a blunt

Read More
743 Words | 3 Pages

Jamie Ford's Hotel on the Corner of Bitter Sweet is a historical fiction novel that takes place during the Japanese Internment of 1942. It centers n Henry Lee, a Chinese boy living with traditional Chinese parents and trying to grow up as a typical American kid in the U.S. during World War II. When he befriends a Japanese girl in the midst of the conflict, Henry soon discovers that navigating between the borders of cultures comes with many obstacles. The novel is a painful yet beautiful commentary of the racial separation in those times, capturing the struggles of both Japanese and Chinese Americans, along with a small look into African American’s lives as well. It tells the story of the horrible camps through the eyes of a young Chinese boy, which is an interesting perspective.

Read More
1157 Words | 5 Pages

Dwight Okita 's poem showed us about American identity has more to do with how you experience culture than where your family came from. Details of the texts such as the speaker describing herself as a typical teen girl, seeing that she dislikes chopsticks, something that we associate with Japanese culture, and telling us that she was the typical American meal of hot dogs. In Cisneros 's story, she tells us about the narrator 's American identity contrasts with her awful grandmother’s strong Mexican roots. But the Americans George the narrator based on her looks. Without this liked grandma of first praise for her American children and grandchildren in a barbaric country, which seems to contrast Michele, Keeks, and Juniors love of American culture, cause we can see, based on their heroes and villains game, which takes its references from popular American culture.

Read More
661 Words | 3 Pages

A quote to resemble this is on page 148,“And we have decided to move into our house because my father-my father-he earned it for us brick by brick.” Once the family is aware of the new house, the family starts to get closer. A surge of happiness comes from the family because they are moving out of the controlling apartment space they lived in,to their own house. This is what they have been hoping for the whole time, so after all this time they can finally have a form of freedom. This changed how characters were viewed also.

Read More
455 Words | 2 Pages

The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls is story that revolves around a family that faces the hardships of a low class life, constant frustration, and hopelessness. I believe this story is centralized by the title of the book. “The glass castle” throughout the book is a dream, it is dream to Jeanette and her whole family, it represents a better life in a better place. Jeannette Walls centralizes her writing based on diction, the writer specifically chose unique words to show her experiences and emotions, this helps readers interpret the story from the writer's point of view.

Read More
1527 Words | 7 Pages

Calling the reader out on this linguistic practice develops a sense of self awareness. Though hidden in the footnote, to avoid creating a tangent in the overall argument and worse falling to the counterargument that “it's just semantics,” Foster Wallace throws these pieces in as curveballs- evidence that a reader was unlikely to expect nor be prepared to process. While intentionally he intentionally trespasses’ the readers comfort zone of their own communication, he makes his article relate, if only through these footnotes, to the ways in which they’ve previously engaged with the matter. As Foster Wallace situates the reader in the moral conundrum, he draws from the them a greater awareness of self and skepticism of the multiple party’s motivations which contributes to the overall multidimensional analysis of the

Read More
880 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
461 Words | 2 Pages

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

Read More
1225 Words | 5 Pages

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

Read More
1558 Words | 7 Pages

The book and the movie possess similar qualities. First, in both the movie and the book, all the mothers left their old lives in China for a new one in America. ” My mother could sense that the woman of these families also had

Read More
1131 Words | 5 Pages

The story picked is What Means Switch written by Gish Jen. It revolves around the life of Mona Chang, an 8th grade American-born Chinese girl in New York during the 1960s. She meets Sherman Matsumoto, a new Japanese student who becomes her boyfriend. She battles Japanese, traditional and modern Chinese influences, in a western environment. The concepts derived from this short story are as follows.

Read More
587 Words | 3 Pages

This explanation the speaker gave of Joe telling his father about breaking their tradition gave us a an ideal illustration of the lack of punctuation that is demonstrated throughout the entire novel. The author chose to not use any quotation marks, or much punctuation so he could create a better image for the reader of the casual and child like conversations amidst the father and son in the novel. Nevertheless the syntax used in the novel also spoke for the honest, loving, and respectful relationship that was shared among Joe and his

Read More
818 Words | 4 Pages

“Biff, after he has discovered his identity, is able to speak forcibly and in simple language which round like everyday speech, though it is of course, full of the devices of rhetoric. It is interesting moving speech, his emotion is dumb, and so is Willy’s response. “Happy and Howard need only a superficial language because they are using speech as a sort of provocative shell. Charley also is keeping emotion at arm’s length, but he expresses himself with a crisp, wise-cracking force. ‘Can’t we do something about the walls?’

Read More

More about Analysis Of Gish Jen's Story 'The Third Dumpster'

Related Topics

Open Document