In The Apocalypse in African-American Fiction, Maxine Lavon Montgomery weaves a multi-faceted interpretation of Toni Morrison’s Sula. Montgomery submits, “drawing upon an African cosmological system, Morrison maintains that although life in modern America is chaotic, it is possible to escape life in the West and recover the time of the black community’s non-Western beginnings” (74). Though Montgomery makes a highly detailed argument advancing several significant ideas that are well worth acknowledging, her final conclusions exceed what can be clearly supported in Sula.
Montgomery’s first major heading of “Modern Chaos and Ancient Paradigms” (75) sketches her belief that “natural disasters, unexpected deaths, and continued racist oppression serve as bitter reminders of the near-tragic dimensions of life, for to be black in America is to experience calamity as an ever-present reality, to live on the brink of apocalypse” (75). She supports this statement with the origins of the Bottom…
A Comparison of Themes of Amy Tan’s Kitchen God’s Wife and Joy Luck Club
Similar Themes in of Kitchen God’s Wife and Joy Luck Club
Amy Tan’s two novels, The Kitchen God’s Wife and The Joy Luck Club, represent a unique voice that is rarely heard in literature. Tan is a Chinese-American woman who tells stories of old China that are rich in history and culture. Both novels have at least one strong central female character who is trying to inform her daughter about their Chinese heritage and familial roots.
The plot ofThe Joy Luck Club displays this idea in each woman’s story. The older generation is comprised of four women: Suyuan Woo, An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-Ying St. Clair. They relate their stories to their daughters, hoping to retain some of their rich histories and old lifestyles in China. Joy Luck is centered around Suyuan Woo’s daughter, June, who is dealing with the death of her mother. June takes her mother’s place at the mah-jong table, where she is told that she must learn about her mother’s life in China. The one thing June knows of her mother’s life in China is the story of her abandoned twin babies. The members of t…