My Antonia and The Joy Luck Club Comparative Analysis on Immigration Anonymous College

Both Amy Tan and Willa Cather, in the books The Joy Luck Club and My Antonia, convey the challenges foreign immigrants undergo when attempting to assimilate to the new language and culture of America and the disconnect that forms as a result while also examining the impact of time and culture on defining gender roles in one's society.

Within their respective novels, both Tan and Cather utilize diction in order to demonstrate the language and cultural differences that both alienates and brings together the characters within each novel. In the chapter “The Voice From The Wall”, Lena St. Clair recounts her childhood role as translator between her Chinese mother, Ying-Ying, and white father. After Ying-Ying’s miscarriage, she begins to cry out and grieve in Chinese. Lena, not wanting to cause her father additional heartache when asked to translate, says, “I could not tell my father what she had said. How could I tell him she was crazy?” (Tan 112). But, rather than aiding her father in his own grieving process, the mistranslation Lena deliberately provides her father hinders him from adequately supporting and helping Ying-Ying through her ensuing depression. This miscommunication results in Ying-Ying gradually growing more and more...