Preview

Who's Irish

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
787 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Who's Irish
In “Who’s Irish”, Gish Jen demonstrates a family that has Chinese root and American culture at the same time. The main character is a fierce grandmother who lives in with her daughter’s family, and then ironically forced to move out because of her improper behavior during she raises her granddaughter. The author uses some unpleasant language and contents to describe the situation, which are effectively demonstrate how difficult and how struggle for people who lives in the gap between two different cultures. I can’t say who is right or who is wrong, but feel sorry for the grandmother. The grandmother of Sophie is an old lady who has worked very hard her whole life. She and her husband own their restaurant although they have no money and do not speak English when they first have come to the U.S. Because of her personality, her husband, people who work for her, and even gang members afraid of her. She doesn’t like her daughter’s in-law family, whose name is Shea, because they have Irish root, because four sons in this family are not working, and mostly because her own stereotype about them. She doesn’t understand these people’s behavior, especially her son in-law, John Shea. He doesn’t work and still have some problems constantly even though he already has beautiful wife, beautiful daughter and everything he needs.
Her daughter, Sophie’s mom, Natalie, is the vice president in the bank. She supports her husband and being tolerant about his unemployment. Natalie and her mother sometimes have argument about Natalie’s husband and his family; they have their own understanding about things based on different culture and different value. They have something in common and something in contrast.
Sophie is a wild three years old American child. She looks like Chinese on appearance but behaves very differently than what her grandmother expects. She takes her clothes off in the public, she like to climb everything, and she learns how to attack her mommy from her

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Even though she hates her father, she still loves him. She misunderstands her parents’ situation, being only fourteen, and holds a grudge against her mother for going back to her father and agreeing to move to Norway, “he whistles and she goes back like a well trained dog”.…

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    She also describe the rough history that many Asian Americans had to experience in order to live in this Country. They used fake papers and fake family names in order to come here. Their was discrimination towards Asians. Keeping the memory of her grandma Asian culture she uses the dish rice and gravy…

    • 266 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Our main character Sophie is a “huge dork”(pg 40) of a sixteen year old “plain” (pg 34) girl, who has “brown hair, freckles, and the whole girl-next-door vibe going on” (pg 22). She is a “witch” (pg 11) who is “really bad at girl stuff” (pg 39). She was raised by her mom, “Grace Mercer” (pg 22), who is a “human” (pg 84), “Religious Studies teacher” (pg 23). Sophie’s “roommate” (pg 29) “Jennifer Talbot” (pg 29) or “Jenna” (pg 29) is a “tiny girl, barely five feet tall” (pg 28) with ”skin that was nearly snow, as was her hair, with the exception of a hot-pink stripe running through her bangs.”…

    • 381 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In the book “Bread Givers” by Anzia Yezierska a young girl from poland grows up in america. Set in the 1920s conditions for immigrants living in the United States were tough, not to mention living in the lower East side of Manhattan, New York. Reb Smolinsky the father of Sara in this book really tries on impressing his beliefs onto his children for he is very set on his traditional ways. This becomes a very prominent underlying to the story as Sara grows throughout the book moving from her fathers beliefs to her own. This clash between the “old way” of doing things and her new american life style Sara breaks free from this conflict in finding her own identity in this new world. By doing so Sara really connect and Identifies with three main factors in her life independence, education and hard work. With these three basic elements in Sara’s life she really transitions into her own being and self identity.…

    • 1197 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    She constantly hears the mother and daughter in the adjacent apartment yelling, fighting, and even throwing things. She is shocked by the difference between these noisy confrontations and her own relationship with her mother, which is marked by silences and avoidance of conflict. Yet, when she realizes that the shouting and weeping she hears through the wall in fact express a kind of deep love between mother and daughter, she realizes the importance of expressing one’s feelings, even at the cost of peace and harmony. Although the neighboring family lives a life of conflict and sometimes even chaos, they possess a certainty of their love for each other that Lena feels to be lacking in her own home. Reflecting back on this episode of her life, Lena begins to realize how she might apply the lesson she learned then to her married life with…

    • 400 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    To start off, Sophie was a hidden deviation and her parents did everything they could to…

    • 568 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Helen relationship with her father is that she feels that it is not fair that he was not there for her and her siblings Helen feels he didn’t make any sacrifices. Helen feels that her father was never there to help her with her with the relationship she had with her mother because he was working all the time. I believe the defense she uses for her father is that he had to work so that is why he was not there for her and her siblings, Helen feels it is her father’s fault that her brother is mess up and she avoids being angry with her father with not being there for her brother and the family but she is really upset that he wasn’t there to save her from her mother. Helen feels she cannot tell her mother how angry she is at her, I think Helen might feel her mother took anger out on her because the father was not there all the time, Helen is angry with her father because he was not there but she…

    • 1727 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mia is Francesca’s mother. Very dominant and a University Lecturer. Mia is well liked. Acts how she wants. Actively involved in Francesca’s life. Gives her lots of advice/pep talks. Fran attends St. Sebastian – previously all boys. Only 30 girls attend, Fran misses old friends.…

    • 987 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    As its complex structure suggests, the book tries to organize the the stories of mother and daughter with the intention of reaching the same destination: the daughter's recovery of her cultural and ethnic identity as Chinese by overcoming the generational gap and the cultural differences between herself and her mother. The mother intend to hand over their "good intentions" and "usable past" in China to their daughter in America. Amy Tan, depicts the relationship between Jing-mei, a young Chinese-American girl, and her mother, a Chinese immigrant, her mother. She does not have something special things. However, her normal life has changed a little because of her mother.…

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Amy Tan’s novel of conflicting cultures, The Joy Luck Club, the narrators contemplate their inability to relate from one culture to another. The novel is narrated by and follows the connected stories about conflicts between Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters. Jing-mei, one of the daughters, has taken her mother’s place in a weekly gathering her mother had organized called the Joy Luck Club, in which four women would gather to gamble together to help each other. Through use of many different perspectives and concise diction, Tan reveals her theme of building bridges between cultures and generations and the revelation that tragedy shapes us. In The Joy Luck Club, Tan’s deceptively simple yet dramatic…

    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Play It as It Lays

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Maria’s family is one aspect of life she is detached from. Maria is separated from her husband Carter Lang. Together; they have one child named Kate. The fact that Maria and Carter are separated seems to evoke feelings of helplessness for Maria. She is left alone and resorts to memories for comfort. Feelings of vulnerability and constraint seem to be a reoccurring theme in her life. Maria has no control over Kate. Due to medical conditions from birth, Kate must be under constant medical supervision. Living under medical supervision is what is normal for Kate. As a result, Maria is left feeling dismal because there is nothing she can physically do to help her daughter.…

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Why I Live at the P.O

    • 1143 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In this short story we meet Sister and four members of her family. The Protaganist of the story ia Sister , the oldest child of two girls, and her younger sister Stella-Rondo is the family favorite. It seems everything Sister wants, Stella-Rondo gets. Sister says that Stella-Rondo stole her boyfriend for it was Sister who had been dating Mr. Whitaker first until Stella- Rondo, being the jealous person she was told him that Sister was "one-sided," unequal on both sides. And that in-turn ended the relationship.Sisters real problem is that she is extreamly jelous of Stella-rondo. And she, Sister, at times can be a little selfish. For instance at the end Sister says to herself, "And if Stella-Rondo should come to me this minute, on bended knee, and attempt to explain the incidents of her life with Mr. Whitaker, I'd simply put my fingers in both my ears and refuse to listen" (153). That statement alone defines her jealously and selfishness towards her sister, because it seems Mr. Whitaker is the only thing she is really upset about for she makes no mention about any of the other family members,…

    • 1143 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Comparrison Essay

    • 722 Words
    • 3 Pages

    When Amy Tan falls in love with the minister’s son at the young age of fourteen, she takes for granted what her mother was trying to show her about life. Young Amy’s trying to impress her boyfriend by appearing as a traditional American girl not wanting to appear in any way Chinese American. Tan, still not experiencing life yet, had not grasped that being different is what makes someone who they are. It wasn’t until many years later that she came to realize that all her mother was trying to express to her was that she should be proud of her Chinese heritage. “But inside you must always be Chinese. You must be proud you are different. Your only shame is to have shame.” (117) She was not appreciating the diversity of different cultures and how both cultures have their own richness and value. Tan was embarrassed the whole time at Christmas dinner when she was trying to impress her young love Robert not realizing that her mother was making the meal for her. “For Christmas Eve that year, she had chosen all my favorite foods.” (117)…

    • 722 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Red Glass Summary

    • 1694 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Being so different from everybody Sophie gets loads of attention that she doesn’t know how to handle without being afraid. At the beginning of the book Sophie is definitely not the kind of girl that likes to meet new people. Sophie calls herself an “amoeba” because she feels like an outsider of the whole “organism.” When people approach Sophie many different thoughts start popping into her head that she cannot control. These thoughts that Sophie has control her brain and are making her sick mentally. Sophie has very low self-esteem because she always tells herself bad things. Not only does she have low self-esteem but also a low confidence level in herself. When Sophie, Dika, and Pablo decide to take Pablo back to his family she gets very weary five minutes after they leave, “My stomach tightened, and again, that familiar feeling came, the beginnings of panic---next my heart would race and my breath quicken and my throat dry up”(39). Sophie tends to panic in lots of situations which drive her to not speak. This is a problem because she cannot make friends without…

    • 1694 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Connie’s relationships with her family are rather distant and are lacking affection and attention from her parents: with her father, who is “away at work most of the time”, and does not “bother talking much” (627), and her mother, who seemed to have more complaints and discontent with Connie, than love and dedication.…

    • 504 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics