A Pair Of Tickets Analysis

Everything can seem so perfect and realistic, until a life changing event happens; and your life is no longer as put together as it once was. Throughout these two stories: “Why I Live at the P.O.” by Eudora Welty and “A Pair of Tickets” by Amy Tan, the readers will be able to see how many characters develop and exploit their thoughts and feelings. Symbolism, tone and point of view help express Welty’s and Tan’s theme that, you need to get through an unthinkable experience to find your place and sense of identity. Although, in the story “Why I Live at the P.O.” the emotions of the narrator are very direct; she portrays her emotions as if the readers were in her mind at that exact moment. Whereas, in “A Pair of Tickets” she uses the changing
In the opening paragraph, the sisters vivid and misinterpretation of her younger sister Stella-Ronda, opens the conflict that is going to arise throughout the story. “Stella-Rondo is exactly twelve months to the day younger than I am and for that reason she’s spoiled,” (Welty46) shows only the beginning of this wall Sister is planning to build against her family. However, Sister being the narrator of the story makes her less reliable because of the bias and jealousy she gives off towards anything Stella-Rondo says or does. Even though “A Pair of tickets” is also told by the main character in the story which is the sister. The authors have different approaches into how this effects how the story is told. Both stories are told by the narrator, but in Welty’s story Sister being the narrator is a disadvantage because she comes off as being non reliable. Whereas, in Tans story the sister being the narrator is a power source because she’s trying to reconnect with her family and Chinese culture that she didn’t think was in her blood. “But today I realize I’ve never really known what it means to be Chinese. I am thirty-six years old. My mother is dead and I am on a train carrying with me her dreams of coming home. I am going to china” (Tan129). However, the two narrators from each of the stories remain unnamed, because it can represent any one going through this experience of
However, it appears that everyone sees Stella-Rondo as the bright child. “So the first thing Stella-Rondo did at the table was turn Papa-Daddy against me”(Welty46) Sister needed someone to blame for family disconnections that were probably there before Stella-Rondo even returned back home. The rising action of the story arises to the surface as the tension between the sisters increases, due to the fact that Sister was becoming more envious of what Stella-Rondo was possessing from everyone in her family. She felt replaced, especially when her own dad said that she had no good tools to help her get a good job, whereas, when he was describing his younger daughter she had “a brilliant mind and deserved credit for getting out of town” (Welty48). The distortion of family issues, made Sister feel even more isolated from her family and less appreciated. In contrast, Tan uses techniques like symbolism to show her current and future state she is going to endure. Throughout this story there’s many uses of symbols that captures the theme of re-identification. The changing of seasons, represented the change of scenery as she pictured what it would be like to be in China and also she described her scenery as she was on this self-discovering journey to finding serenity, “I see platforms crowded with people wearing drab western