A River of Light

"You know how much I love you," he says. "This goddamned situation with Catherine and you. I don't know why you two want to do this to me. Things will change. I promise." (119)

Without A Map

“I want to go home, home to my adult life, with its losses carved forever in my path, with its possibilities, like unformed clouds, calling me forward.” (116)

Meredith started this new journey intending to leave her past behind and hoping for a better life. However, the struggles that the she goes through during this journey, reminds her more of her home. This makes her realize that she can never forget the mistakes that she had done and all the problems she had back home. So, she decides to stop running away from her past and starts heading towards her home. Her going back home shows how mature she is. It shows that she has the courage to makeup for the mistakes that she has done, and take up the responsibilities as an adult. She is not a coward like her father who just abandoned his family for his own happiness. Meredith is going back home and willing to try new things in her life rather than running away from it.

The Uprising

“Silently, I drive into the next new life” (49).

                When I read this quote I thought that Meredith was happy that finally she found someone to be with. After this, I was expecting a huge turn in Meredith’s life. I was expecting Erik to be more supportive and a guy who cares about her. But after reading further I learned that he doesn’t care about Meredith as much.  This quote doesn’t necessarily mean that she is going to forger her past. When she says “next new life”, I didn’t think that she would forget her child. I mean who would forget their child? No one would, even after they find all the pleasures in this world. 

Waiting

“Do you know what this town is saying about me?” my mother answers from above. ‘‘They say that my daughter is common, a slut’” (22).

Although her mother doesn’t say this, Meredith thinks of herself as slut because she knows that this is exactly what’s going on in her mother’s mind. When Meredith thinks of her mother, she doesn’t think of her mother asking her about how she and the baby are doing. This is because she is aware that her mother is more concerned about herself and the community than her own daughter who is in extreme need of support at this time. Her parents are mostly to be blamed for what she did. Now they are acting like it is all Meredith’s fault, and are trying to make her feel guilty for her “shameful” act. I am so upset at this. I mean why wouldn’t they accept that it’s their fault that they didn’t pay enough attention to their daughter, and stop blaming their daughter for the taunts that they get from the community? I think that even if they don’t take the blame on themselves they should at least be helpful to their daughter. Who leaves a 16 year old in a rough situation like this and that too all alone? Did they forget that they are her parents and they should be supporting their daughter no matter what? Her parents are backing away from their duty so they should be ashamed of themselves. 

Shunned

“I was not formed yet, not a decision-maker about my life.  I was not yet born to consciousness.  But here, suddenly, I was facing the results of being in the world.  In those empty, slow, lonely days, I had to be born into my next life, as I lost my old self in a kind of death” (xx).

            This quote shows how Meredith felt after getting pregnant. She couldn’t make her own decisions then how could she start making decisions about her own child? Her sixteen year old self was haunted with such questions. She did not have any real world experience however, she was in a situation where she had to start making her own decisions. I think that in this quote Meredith is trying to show that although she was pregnant and had to deal with the real world, she was not ready. When she says that’s she had to be born into next life since she lost her old self, she means that because of her pregnancy her childhood was snatched away. She could not live her childhood to the fullest. She had to forget her past and had to deal with the “adult” world way too early in her life. We can say that it was hard for her to forget her past because she describes that as her death. It is such an overwhelming situation for a sixteen year old girl to be pregnant and don’t have any one else to support her. This was the time when Meredith needed the most help but she was lonely. Moreover, she was considered an outcast because she committed a “crime”. Meredith had to learn to swallow all that pain and had to learn to live with that burden and loneliness. 

Characterization Activity-Molokai

                                          

  “She couldn’t stand the shame” (Brennert 128).

          Dorothy was a person for whom self respect was everything. After the society knew that Rachel was infected with leprosy, they started treating her and her family so poorly. Dorothy and her family got so much abhorrence from the society. Instead of hearing comforting words from the society, they got taunts. They called them the “Dirty Family”, and they didn’t want to be around them. Dorothy was alone and her home was broken after Rachel left. Dorothy could not stand all this hatred. Therefore, even though she loved Rachel, she left.

         Her main reason for abandoning Rachel was her pride. It is so heartbreaking to see a mother abandon  her child especially when the child need more love. However, if we put ourselves in Dorothy's shoe then i think what she did was right. Image is a large part of society. This disease carried such a shame and heavy stigma that it must have been such a burden for her to carry. I think her taking her other children and hiding was her way of trying to "make up" for what happened to her daughter. Maybe Dorothy thought that she had lost already one child and doesn’t want to lose another child. This is how I imagine her thought process might have worked. It is not that Dorothy wanted to abandon Rachel. She was forced to abandon her. She would have survived in that broken home if she got love, care and respect from the society. Dorothy is not to blame for her actions, the society is. So, I think what Dorothy did was right from her point of view.

Joy Luck Club

         In the movie, Joy Luck Club, mothers and daughters have special connection. They take different roles depending on cultural demands. In China, the mothers were expected to be obedient wives and to never openly challenge authority. While in America, the daughters are independent, have the option of divorcing and taking almost any job. For the mothers, moving to America creates a future full of privilege and success. For the daughters, it is the freedom to take their opportunities and do with them as little or as much as they want. The mothers want their daughters to have all the privileges that they could not have, but are disappointed to realize that this in turn means their daughters will not truly understand them. Their daughters gains respect, however, they becomes so Americanized that they speak only English. They are able to communicate with one another but unable to understand each other.

Inability to communicate is one of the themes of this movie. The daughters can speak very little Chinese, and their mothers's English is poor. This is important because the daughters grows up without any suffering, so they cannot understand their mother's painful past, and their mother knows no way that she can communicate the depths and the details of their suffering to their daughter. I can somewhat relate to this. Me and my mother have very different views about most of the things, and she will take different meaning of whatever I say. She becomes over protected about me all the time and starts lecturing me. For example, she did not want me go to the prom because she thought that people get drunk there and that is dangerous because there are boys as well. It took me ages to convince her that there are teachers there so one drinks. Whenever I do something wrong she yells at me by saying that I am becoming so American. However, I think that this because of our cultural differences too. My mother like all the mothers, in the movie, also wanted me to have all the freedom and rights but the disadvantage of that is that we will have different opinions about things.