A Pair of Tickets

Missing Pieces

Focusing on: A Pair of Tickets

This chapter made me feel really pained and gloomy. It made me feel as if I had woken up after being beaten up. The images portrayed in A Pair of Tickets were all, in a sense, like old polaroids. Just like a person crying over past memories and losses, this chapter was able to create the same kind of mood and made me feel a grievance, a longing. When I read the story of Jing-mei's mother I was disappointed at her. I understood that she was trying to do what was best, what was logical, but I felt that she had given up on her daughters too soon. It was not only because of the fact that she had left them vulnerably on the side of the road, but it was also because of the fact that she had been saved. I felt that if she had held onto her daughters, she could have saved both them and herself. I hated the irony behind the situation!

One noun to describe the relationship between Jing-mei and her sisters is "affinity." Even though Jing-mei and her sisters have never met, they are immediately drawn to each other and are able to feel the same emotions once they met. Page 331 portrays this when it says, "As soon as I get beyond the gate, we run toward each other, all three of us embracing, all hesitations and expectations forgotten...'Mama, Mama,' we murmur, as if she is among us." This scene expresses the fact that they were all naturally drawn to one another and also are able to sympathize with each other over their mother's death.

One writing technique that Amy Tan uses in this chapter is similie. An example of this is shown on page 328 where it says, "...this was impossible, like looking for a needle on the bottom of the ocean." The word "needle" is used to symbolize the daughters, and the word "ocean" is used to symbolize China or Shanghai. Through using similie, Tan is able to emphasize the condition of the situation, of Jing-mei's mom finding her daughters, which is nearly "impossible," just like looking for a small piece of metal in a large expanse of endless water.

I believe that the main conflict of this chapter is that Jing-mei is scared and doesn't know what to tell her sisters, about their mother's death. This conflict is internal and Human vs.Self. Jing-mei herself, is having a hard time accepting the fact that her mother is dead and is unprepared to tell her sisters about it as well. Jing-mei struggles within herself, worrying and trying her best to prepare for the meeting. I believe that this problem can also become an internal conflict for the sisters as well, in that they will also have to go through what Jing-mei is facing.