Writing Assignment on

Tan's "A Pair of Tickets"

Write on the following topic. Note that it asks you, among other tasks, to explore in detail the nature and possible significance of some important systematic contrast Tan  has built into the situation she invites us to imagine. 

What are the main points of difference (real or apparent) between the daughter protagonist and her mother?  What is the climactic moment (of the story you're analyzing) in which the daughter realizes that these differences are less fundamental than some common features that they share?  What in particular are we to understand these common elements of character to consist in?  (In saying "in particular," I am signifying that your reader will not be satisfied if you content yourself with some vague and abstract descriptor like "Chinese."  In saying "elements of character," I am pointing out that it will not do to stop with noting features of physical appearance.)  Finally (the climax of your analysis):  what experiences have enabled the protagonist to endow this epiphantic moment with this particular meaning?

Your final draft should exhibit insightful transitions where you shift from answering one question, in the above agenda of curiosity, to another.  (That is, you don't want to just stop answering one and turn your attention to the next.  The reader should be able to see the logical sense of the move from finishing the answering of the former to the taking up of the latter.)

  Suggestions are welcome.  Please send your comments to lyman@ksu.edu .

      Contents copyright © 2000 by Lyman A. Baker.

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  This page last updated 09 November 2000.