The first three stories in this section are talking about the relationship between mothers and daughters and the last one is concluding the whole book “The Joy Luck Club”. By examining this section, there is one moral in these four stories, which is the relationship between daughters and mothers, is very strong and mothers and daughters have similar fate and face.
The plots in these four stories can prove the moral above. In “Magpies”, when An-mei hsu thinks about her daughter’s marriage is fallen apart, she recalls her mother and how she followed her mother to Tientsin. An-mei also recalls the conflict between her mother, Wu Tsing and Second wife of Wu Tsing. She remembers how Second wife lied to her mother and how Wu Tsing forced her mother to become his Fourth wife. Finally, An-mei’s mother died by taking too much opium. An-mei realizes her mother’s situation is as same as her daughter, both of them cannot save their lives very well and they like magpies.
In “Waiting between the Trees”, Ying-Ying St. Clair recalls her story in the childhood, when she sees signs in her daughter’s house. Ying-Ying recalls how was her first marriage, how she met her first husband and final result on her first marriage. Ying-Ying also talks about her birth year of Tiger and the relationship between she and Clifford St. Clair and how both of them become equally. Ying-Ying realizes the relationship between her and Clifford St. Clair is also as same as her daughter and her husband. Ying-Ying also talks that her daughter is as same as a Tiger. At the end, Yin-Yin know her daughter will go upstairs when her daughter fight with her husband and she will wait for her coming.
In “Double Face”, when Lindo Jong looks at her daughter’s face, she compares American faces and Chinese faces. Lindo Jong recalls what her mother had told her fortune by looking her face. She also remembers how she moves to America and she realizes that her face becomes American face already.
In “A pair of Ticket”, Jing-Mei Woo talks about her feeling before she meet her two sisters. Also, Jing-Mei talks about the meeting in the Airport with her father and aunt. In the meeting, Jing-Mei’s father talks about Jing-Mei’s mother and how she escaped when Japanese came to China and how she leaves her two daughters on the rail.
Prince Hamlet Versus Machiavelli’s Prince
Prince Hamlet Versus Machiavelli’s Prince
The Prince is a celebrated and highly controversial piece of work by the Italian aristocrat Niccolo Machiavelli. His work is a summation of all the qualities a prince must have in order to remain in his position. Machiavelli supports the idea that a prince use his power for the ultimate benefit of all, but he also does not condemn the use of any unpleasant means in order for the prince to maintain his power. His ideas both compare and contrast to the methods used by Prince Hamlet of Denmark in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hamlet, as we know, struggles mightily to maintain his position as the prince, and one must wonder if this is due to some of the highly essential qualities outlined by Machiavelli which Hamlet lacks.
Machiavelli states that a prince must always be prepared for war, even during times of peace. A prince’s profession is that of war and all the training, discipline, and studying that accompany it. Hamlet certainly did not follow these guidelines. When the play opened, Denmark was faced with the threat of war from Norway, yet war with another country seemed to be the furthest thing from Hamlet’s mind. Hamlet was too preoccupied with the matters of his father’s death and his mother’s remarriage to even consider the safety of the nation.
Machiavelli also feels that a prince must not hesitate to act wrongly in order to protect himself and his throne. He states, “..it is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain his position to learn how not to be good ….” ( A World of Ideas 38). According to his philosophy, the pursuit of all things regarded as virtuous and praiseworthy will only lead to the prince’s ruin. The battle between goo…
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…r in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them” (Hamlet 127). Hamlet found he could suffer no more, and he fought to the bitter end to drown away the heavy burdens of his soul.
Sources Cited and Consulted:
Gray, Terry A. “Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet.” http://www.palomar.edu/Library/shake.htm.
Jones, W. T. Masters of Political Thought. Ed. Edward, McChesner, and Sait. Vol. 2. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947.
Lee A. Jacobus. A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers. 5th edition. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1998.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. Trans. Hill Thompson. Norwalk: The Easton Press, 1980.
Shakespeare, William. The Three-Text Hamlet. Eds. Paul Bertram and Bernice Kliman. New York: AMS Press, 1991.