Examples from student mid-term essays [October 2006]:



Examples from student mid-term essays [October 2006]:

Here are samples from two strong opening paragraphs. The first results in a rather strong essay, but the writer has to work a bit more to create a logically ordered, fully developed essay because the opening lacks the clear definition of the conceptual frame or the specific statement of topics to be covered that appear in the second paragraph.

As children grow, they face the sometimes difficult task of discovering who they are. It is with good intentions that pParents endeavor to guide their children with good intentions, attempting to foster the best future for their offspring. The addition of a culture barrier simply adds to the complexity of the search for identity, creating what Ronald Takaki, in A Different Mirror describes as “twoness” (276). In Susan Nunes “A Moving Day,” and Jhumpa Lahiri’s “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine,” the authors illustrate the difficulty of this struggle by examining the conflict between first generation American children of immigrant parents.

Twoness – A Context Lens

For W.B. DuBois, the concept of twoness is created by context. Context creates the lens through which a minority ethnic group is viewed throughout a society not only by the majority members of the society but by the individuals in the smaller ethnic group as well. For those members in the minority, this creates a dichotomy – a personal identity and an identity as prescribed by the overall dynamics of the society. As DuBois states in The Souls of Black Folks, “It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” I use the term ‘prescribed’ rather than ‘described’ deliberately. ‘Described’ conveys the connotation that there is an objective observation, whereas ‘prescribed’ illustrates that this separation is caused by a deliberate pre-established institution within the society – or DuBois’s figurative measuring tape. The first generation Americans depicted in “Seventeen Syllables” by Hisaye Yamamoto and Jhumpa Lahiri’s “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine” often experience difficulties due to the context of their situations. In “Seventeen Syllables,” a teenage girl begins to see how her parents’ Japanese culture differs from her more American culture through her mother’s experiences. “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine” also shows how a young girl begins to perceive the dominance of western culture in her household compared to the native eastern culture of her parents. The authors of these stories sometimes use small details to emphasize these epiphanies.

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