[Mike Passarelli]

Theme: Societal Traditionalism
Impression: Stagnation; Inability to Progress
Quote #1: Pg. 393 “…I had thought my family, having settled among immigrants who had also been their neighbors in the ancestral land, needed to clean their name, and a wrong word would incite the kinspeople even here.”
Quote #2: Pg. 391 “Adultery, perhaps only a mistake in good times, became a crime when the village needed food.”
Quote #3: Pg. 387 “They expected her alone to keep the traditional ways, which her brothers, now among the barbarians, could fumble without detection.”

Impression: Ghosts!
Quote #1: Pg. 393 “A child with no decent line would not soften her life but only trail after her, ghostlike, begging her to give it purpose.”
Quote #2: Pg. 393 “People who can comfort the dead can also chase after them to hurt them further – a reverse ancestor worship.”
Quote #3: Pg. 384 “The old woman from the next field swept a broom through the air and loosed the spirits-of-the-broom over our heads.”

Impression: Impotence/Loss of Agency
Quote #1: Pg. 386 “Women in the old China did not choose.”
Quote #2: Pg. 386 “The other man was not, after all, much different from her husband. Both gave orders: she followed.”
Quote #3: Pg. 385 “Those of us in the first American generations had to figure out how the invisible world the emigrants built around our childhoods fits in solid America.”

[Connie]

Theme – Family / Friends Relationships

Impression – Silence / Secrecy
1. (page 383) “YOU MUST NOT tell anyone,” my mother said, “what I am about to tell you. In China your father had a sister who killed herself.”
2. (page 385) ” Don’t let your father know that I told you. He denies her.”

Impression – Betrayal
1. (page 386) “If you tell your family, I’ll beat you. I’ll kill you. Be here again next week.”
2. (page 386) “She told the man, “I think I’m pregnant.” He organized the raid against her.”

Impression – Humiliation / Shameful / Outcast
1. (page 383) “She could not have been pregnant, you see, because her husband had been gone for years.”
2. (page 387) “My aunt must have lived in the same house as my parents and eaten at a outcast table.”

[Briana Roldan]

Theme: Individuality
Quotes: Pgs. 385 & 394
1. “Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that went like this one, a story to grow up on.”
2. “. . . first American Generations have had to figure out how the invisible world that the emigrants built around our childhoods fits in solid America.”
3. “My aunt haunts me-her ghost drawn to me because now, after fifty years of neglect, I alone devote pages of paper to her. . .”
Interpretation/Impression:
These specific quotes give me this sense of individuality because throughout the story that Kingston is telling, I can’t help but get the impression that this essay is her way of trying to figure out who she is and trying to uncover her past. Kingston has dealt with all of these stories that her mother told her growing up, Kingston was expected to believe in these stories, to live by these stories because it always been this way in her Chinese culture. Migrating to America has left Kingston confused about how her Chinese culture and spiritualty fits into that of American society. She is expected to simply accept this invisible world of gods, ghosts, and spirits and apply them to a society where the majority believes in one solid religion. This world that Kingston is forced to grow up on has haunted her being her entire life, the same way that her aunt’s ghost has haunted her for years upon years.
This particular struggle of trying to choose between two different societies, two completely different cultures has also made it difficult for Kingston to set herself apart, to find her own individuality. This specific struggle with individuality follows through to the end of the essay. I feel like the ending really proves the concept of individuality that Kingston is constantly seeking. Kingston has devoted this entire essay to her aunt, whom she is never supposed to speak of, not even in the slightest way. Her aunt has been forgotten about, neglected and out casted for so many years and her ghost is continuously haunting Kingston to tell her story, to allow her to be remembered again. Therefore, Kingston writing this essay is a way to set herself free from the secrecy, from her aunt’s hauntings, from the cultural beliefs that determine who she is and what she will be. Kingston is claiming her individuality without carrying a heavy heart. She has claimed that she is her own person by going against her family secret, by devoting these pages to such a large part of her family history.

[Mohammed Dawan]

Theme: Betrayal
Impression: Blackmail, silence
Quote 1; First page, first line: “You must not tell anyone” my mother said “what i am about to tell you…..” (She tells us anyways)
Quote 2; page 386, fourth paragraph: She told the man “I think im pregnant.” He organized the raid against her.
Quote 3; page 390, second paragraph: “She kept the man’s name to herself throughout her labor and dying.” At the end the aunt betrayed herself

[Justin L Lesta]

Theme: Betrayal
Quote1: 1stPage, Paragraph3, Line5: “She could not have been pregnant, you see, because her husband had been gone for years.”
Quote2:Page385, Paragraph2, Line3: “Don’t humiliate us.”

Impression1: This quote is showing how the aunt had committed adultery and had been impregnated by another man that was not her own husband who had been gone for years. My impression was that the family was in denial because this was considered such an awful act and looked down upon that they would not expect there own to do such a thing. Not only that, but to do that to them knowing well it would effect the entire family. It shows they feel she was only thinking of herself. It was described betrayal with how selfish she was, she caused the family great pain mentally and physically to there surroundings because of the villagers. It was also not only a betrayal of the family but to the villagers, on acting against there tradition and lifestyle.

Impression2: The mother is speaking to the daughter about her maturing physically and being able to get pregnant. She uses the aunt as an example. To hope she does not make the same mistake as she did to the family by getting impregnated and having the village turn on them. She does not wish to have her betray them as they feel the aunt who is not even acknowledged by the father had done. Pleading that she follow the lifestyle they are apart and to think of the family as a unit first instead of herself as the aunt did.

[Alexis Sosa]

Theme- Gender Roles
Impression: Expectations
Quote 1: “The other man was, after all, not much different than her husband. They both gave orders she followed.”
Quote 2: “They expected her alone to keep the traditional ways, which her brothers, now among the barbarians, could fumble without detection”.
Quote 3: “The villagers punished her for acting as if she could have a private life secret and apart from them.”

Kingston goes on to explain her Aunt was not to blame for what she did since women were expected to obey what men asked of them and without her husband there this man easily filled the gap of authority she was used to following. As a women Kingstons Aunt was expected to follow the traditional ways that the Chinese were used to following such as loyalty to her husband while men were free to do as they pleased without having to fear being looked down on for there actions unlike women who were often shunned or punished. Even if Kingstons Aunt had feelings towards the man that she slept with or if she had been raped the villagers would have punished her for trying to live her own personal life and keeping the relationship a secret while the man that she had been with would have gotten off without any punishment because the reason that he was a “man”. Kingston strongly tries to explain the factors that surrounded the reason for her Aunts pregnancy by including these specific examples that prove that her Aunt had done nothing wrong, rather she was a victim of the expectations placed on women during that time.

[Ray]

Theme: Keeping The Family’s Culture as it is.

Impression: Denial in existence
1. “Don’t let your father know that I told you. He denies her”(p.385).
2. “YOU MUST NOT tell anyone”, my mother said, “What I am about to tell you. In China your father had a sister who killed herself”(p.383).

Impression: Shameful Acts/ The Wall of Shame
1. “She could not have been pregnant, you see, because her husband had been gone for years” (p.383).
2. “My aunt must have lived in the same house as my parents and eaten at a outcast table”(p.387).

Impression: Betrayal/ Secrecy
1. “If you tell your family, I’ll beat you. I’ll kill you. Be here again next week” (p.386).
2. “She told the man, “I think I’m pregnant.” He organized the raid against her” (p.386).

[Vanita]

Theme – Outcasts
Quote: “Don’t let your father know that i told you. He denies her.”
Quote: “On nights when my mother and father talked about their life back home, sometimes they mentioned the “outcast table” whose business they still seemed to be settling, their voices tight.”
Quote: “My aunt must have lived in the same house as my parents and eaten at the outcast table.”

Maxine Kong Kingston explains how her aunt was an outcast although she’s never met or heard about that aunt besides the one story her mother told her. Her aunt was an outcast because she became pregnant with a child that wasn’t her husband. She humiliated and shamed her family so she became an outcast. Although she was raped and became pregnant she still brought a bad name to her family’s name back in China. She was an outcast by the entire village as well as her family. She became an outcast as to where they don’t even consider the fact that she was even born. As a result of this her husband’s family had the right to either sell her, mortgage her or stone her down then return her to her parents.

[JieRu Lin]

Theme: traditional Culture
Impression: secrecy
1. “‘You must not tell anyone,’ my mother said, ‘what I am about to tell you.’” (PG.383)
2. “Don’t tell anyone you had an aunt. Your father does not want to hear her name. She has never been born.”(PG.393)
Impression: Gender Roles
1. “Women in old China did not choose.”(386)
2. “When the family found a young man in the next village to be her husband, she had stood tractably beside the best rooster, his proxy, and promised before they met that she would be his forever.”(PG.386)
Impression: Betrayal
1. “If you tell your family, I’ll beat you. I’ll kill you. Be here again next week.”(PG.386)
2. “She told the man, ‘I’ think I am pregnant.’ He organized the raid against her.(PG.386)

[Melany C.]

Theme: Family Traditions

1. Impression: outcast
A. ” The Chinese family, faces averted but eyes glowering sideways, hung on to the offenders and fed them leftovers. My aunt must have lived in the same house as my parents and eaten at an outcast table.”(pg.386)
B. When the goods were divided among the family, three of the brothers took land, and the youngest, my father, chose an education. After my grandparents gave their daughter away to her husband’s family.”(pg.387)
*Shows based on problems faced or circumstances of been a woman in the Chinese culture was hard to face at that time.

2. Impression: humiliated
A.” Don’t tell anyone you had an aunt. Your father does not want to hear her name. She has never been born.” (pg.393)
B. “The village had also been counting. On the night, the baby was to be born the villagers raided our house.”(pg.383)
*Her father doesn’t want others to know about his sister who has marked the family life back in the village.

3. Impression: Control – over her aunt.
A. “The other man was not, after all, much different from her husband.They both gave orders: she followed.’If you tell your family, I’ll beat you. I’ll kill you. Be here next week.”(pg.386)
B. “Woman in the old China did not choose. Some man had commanded her to lie with him and his secret evil.”(pg.386)
*At this time woman, were not allowed to make their own decision, either their parent or husband will decide for them or a man since they had more power since women were considered weak.

[shaquille terrell-foskey]

Theme – denial- of the aunt

Impression – Betrayal
1. (page 386) “If you tell your family, I’ll beat you. I’ll kill you. Be here again next week.”
2. “She told the man, “I think I’m pregnant.” He organized the raid against her” (p.386).

Impression- humiliated
1. ” Don’t tell anyone you had an aunt. Your father does not want to hear her name. She has never been born.” (pg.393)
2. (page 387) “My aunt must have lived in the same house as my parents and eaten at a outcast table.”

Impression- outcast
1. “When the goods were divided among the family, three of the brothers took land, and the youngest, my father, chose an education. After my grandparents gave their daughter away to her husband’s family.”(pg.387)
2. “On nights when my mother and father talked about their life back home, sometimes they mentioned the “outcast table” whose business they still seemed to be settling, their voices tight.”

[avril padilla]

Theme: Regained Honor
Impression: Regain lost repect.
Quote # Pg. 392 “She may have gone to the pigsty as a last act or responsibility: she would protect this child as she had protect its father”.
Quote # Pg. 390 “She kept the man’s name to herself throughout her labor and dying she did not accuse him that he be punished with her. To save her inseminator’s name she give silent birth”.
Quote # Pg. 393 “Mothers who love their children take them along. It was probably a girl; there is some of forgiveness for boys”.

Theme: Revenge
Impression: Wants to be heard.
Quote # Pg. 393 “My aunt haunts me- her ghost drawn to me because now, after fifty years of neglect”.
Quote # Pg. 394 “I do not think she always means me well.”
Quote # Pg.394 “Chinese are always very frightened of the drowned one, whose weeping ghost , wet hair hanging and skin bloated waits silently by the water to pull down a substitute”.

Theme: Warning
Quote # Pg. 385 “You must not tell anyone,”…… We say that your father has all brothers because it is as if she had never been born”.
Quote # Pg. 385 “Don’t let your father know that I told you”.
Quote # Pg. 385 “What happened to her could happen to you”. “Don’t humiliate us”. …….. The villagers are watchful”.