In your journal: Imagine yourself conversing with a Prime version of an adult guardian in your life. What would you share with this individual? What would you omit? Tweak? Explore a hypothetical dialogue. How would it go? Next, what is stopping you from having this discourse with the real person? What steps could be taken to address this person?
All three stories explore the idea of thinking about how life would have been different if someone, whether it be a son, sister, father, or mother were still alive or had had a different presence in a character’s life. All these stories revolve around a past character’s presence and how it significantly affects the characters in the present story. For instance, in “A Pair of Tickets,” Amy Tan employs a similar theme as “Ghosts” and “Marjorie Prime” by having Jing-mei develop different feelings and thoughts about her mother after her death. The thoughts Jing-mei has such as what her mother mentioned about “activating genes and becoming Chinese” are at first questioned and not understood until the end when she meets her half-sisters; this concept of becoming Chinese that came from her mother is eventually understood and comes to shape Jing-mei’s character at the end. Similarly, in “Marjorie Prime,” each character’s relationship with a family member changes after their death. Once the character is gone, such as when Marjorie dies, it caused Tess to reflect more deeply upon this relationship and what it meant as well as what it could have been to be better as she talks to Marjorie Prime. Likewise, in “Ghosts,” Ibsen’s inclusion of the presence of Captain Alving allows him to emphasize how the sins of the past and immorality take part in the family’s future; Captain Alving’s past presence affects Oswald’s life and personality, develops Mrs. Alving’s character, and helps define the themes of the play such as reputation and duty. In all three works, past characters shape the personalities of those they leave behind as certain information about them causes the present characters to take actions that shape their personalities and define their true selves.
ReplyDeleteIn A Pair of Tickets, by Amy Tan, the themes and ideals from Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts makes for an interesting comparison of family dynamics and thematic elements. The narrators mother serves a similar purpose to Captain Alving. They are even woven into the story similarly, as the reader we never actually get to meet Suyuan, we only know her from her daughters recounting of memories, much like how we only know Captain Alving after his death. I feel as though Captain Alving and Suyuan both left behind certain tasks for their loved ones. Capatin Alving left behind the consequences of his poor morals, causing his wife to devote everything to hiding his true self from their son. And Suyuan left behind the task for her daughter to accept the Chinese in her thats “waiting to be let go”. Also, without knowing Suyuan also leaves behind the fulfilling of her “long- cherished wish” to her daughter and the closure that she was never able to acquire in her life time. In both characters instances, there is an evident emphasis on the effect of the parent on the still living child, and raises the question of closure. Whether Captain Alving ever got closure is arguable because Ibsen gives no indication that he was aware his actions were things he regrets, while Amy Tan creates a a feeling of everything coming full circle through the connection of family. While in Marjorie Prime, the idea of the “Prime” versions of the dead family members is created to give the appearance of assurance and help but I don’t think that it allows for much closure and the living family to be able to move on.
ReplyDeleteThe theme that connects the three works is that we will always feel tied to our family members, even if they die. Throughout “A Pair of tickets”, the daughter finds that she will remain connected to her mother, because they share their chinese heritage. When she travels back to China, and meets her Chinese family, specifically her half twin sisters, she has an awakening within her, and discovers her own chinese genes, and her own connection to China. She could never leave her mother, or her half sisters behind her, just as she could not leave some of her own genes behind. Her mother went through this herself. After being forced to leave her daughters behind, she never forgot them, and really never left them. The connection between family members is seen in Ghosts, as Oswald dies essentially as a result of his father’s bad decisions. It is also seen in Marjorie Prime. Damien’s death sent shock waves through the family, ruining the dynamic, and eventually driving Tess to killing herself. Just as the ghost of Captain Alving was inescapable, the ghost of Damien haunted the family long after his death. . All three of these works show that we will always be connected to the ones we love, and the ones we hate.
ReplyDeleteAnna Vrountas
Amy Tan’s “A Pair of Tickets,” shares a central theme with both Marjorie Prime and Ghosts, that theme being how the past never dies, but instead lingers in our lives, for good or ill. In each story, the main characters continue to have impactful relationships with the dead, relationships which change or gain new dimensions even in the absence of the other person. In “A Pair of Tickets” the main character takes up her dead mother’s quest to find her long lost sisters, an inheritance that leads her to foster a greater understanding of her mother, their relationship, and her identity. In Marjorie Prime the dead live on (literally) through the living’s memories of them, and while only having memories and stories is no replacement for actually having them there to interact with, and the fact that these memories can be flawed or idealized and secondhand makes the Primes fundamentally different from who they were as real people, the memories of the dead still maintain a significant and melancholic presence in the lives of the living. In Ghosts, Mrs Alving literally tries to deny her late husband the ability to linger and affect the lives of her son or anyone else, but her attempts to prevent the late Captain Alving from influencing anyone after his death fail, and he destroys the lives of her entire family without even being there. Death is hardly as final as we think it is. These stories show that the dead hang on to the lives of all that are around them. They live on, through memories, through the distress and anxiety their death brings us, and through our emotional attempts to refuse them any place in our lives after their gone. We can find new ways of connecting with them and new perspectives on who they were. Weather bad or good, as these three stories show us, people rarely die when they die.
ReplyDeletePeople who died in the past are still around us, in our hearts and memories. Jingmei thinks about her dead mother constantly, wishing that she’s still around. Her mother is the one who connects the narrator with her two half sisters. Damien is dead, but he continues to influence his parents and Tess greatly. Captain Alving is still present, in Oswald and in Mrs. Alving’s conscience mind. Even though the people are physically gone, but their spirits (ghosts) are left behind. Their children/people around them become the second version of them sort of. In Jingmei’s case, she is “healed” through meeting her half sisters. It’s like seeing her mother again becasue she has fulfilled her wish. The people in Marjorie Prime grieve through the Primes. It feels like they are trying the keep the dead in this world. On the other hand, Mrs. Alving goes every way to erase the presences of Captain Alving’s mistakes, but fails at the end.
ReplyDeleteLizzy Zhang
All three stories speak on the theme of family through the passing of time. They carry a theme of feeling connected to family despite death. In Ghosts, Mrs. Alving was haunted by her husband's mistakes and saw in her son, similarities that she tried to keep him from having, such as his drinking. Regina also felt the connection with her mother, despite not knowing the truth of her history, and when she found out about her relationship with the captain, her memory was altered and she felt as though it was her destiny to follow her mother's footsteps. In Marjorie Prime, we saw time pass through the presence of different primes such as Walter, Marjorie, and Tess. Marjorie remained connected to her husband after his death, Tess to her mother after that, and then John to Tess at the end. John had to witness the death of both his in-laws and his wife, one could argue he was the most connected to those family members despite not being linked by blood. Also, Damien played a large role in the lives of his parents and sister after his death, creating new dynamics in their relationships and understanding of their own lives -- specifically Tess's life. A Pair of Tickets revolved around the death of Jing-Mei's mother and her grieving and gaining an understanding of their relationship. JM chased after her older twin sisters in the hopes of fulfilling her mother's wish and to see if she could find a deeper/new connection to her mother. She discovered her mother's courage and hope, which felt like a burden because she worried she hadn't valued her mother as much as she should have. Every story told the experiences of characters as they grieved, searched for answers/a better understanding, and learned to cope with the relationships they had before the person's death. Of all three, I enjoyed A Pair of Tickets the most because I developed a genuine understanding and connection for the characters in the story. Ibsen's humor entertained me greatly but it was a little too incredible at times and Marjorie Prime creeped me out throughout the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely see the connection between Ghosts, Marjorie Prime and this story- although the ghosts in "A Pair of Tickets" are more positive, and people are happy to see reflections of those who have passed away. In " A Pair of Tickets", we are not able to see the characteristics of the mother in the two lost daughters because the story is about the journey the main character takes to find them. So, in a way, they are the ghosts of the life that their mother left behind when she was forced to leave China, and the main character is a ghost of who her mother was in America, right up until her death. The separation of the two sisters from their younger sister has immortalized the two pieces that made up the identity of their mother. This connects to the main character's feelings as she traveled to China, where her mother was born, and found that some aspects of the culture she witnessed seemed to be familiar, despite her growing up in America and feeling no previous connection to her Chinese heritage. This story is sort of a cross between Marjorie Prime, where the ghosts of the characters are physically apparent and Ghosts, where the ghost of Captain Alving is an ominous, spiritual presence. "A Pair of Tickets" was a good example of how ghosts can be a positive presence that drives someone to reconnect with their past or memories they have forgotten. Ultimately, the story shows to the audience that growth can come from a loss when you go through eventual acceptance of a loss, unlike having a "prime" or trying to block out or change how a loved one once was.
ReplyDeleteI found that the main connection I had on my mind on while reading “A Pair of Tickets” was the fact that a past character seemed to be one of the main focuses of the story. Obviously, in Marjorie Prime, characters who have passed on, whether that be Walter, Marjorie, Damien, or Tess, are brought back through Primes, which allows them to continuously have a strong presence in the story. But in “A Pair of Tickets”, even though the mother doesn’t come back in another form, her presence is felt through her daughter, and through her story that brings her daughter to where she is now. Like Sam said, I think this shows how death isn’t all that final, and the fact that even if the actual person we love is gone, their being lives on through whatever they leave: Memories, relationships, behaviors, connections, etc. In “Ghosts” this is also seen, just perhaps not as nicely as the other two stories. Captain Alving indirectly leaves his behavior as inheritance to his son, and this inheritance is something that keeps Captain Alving almost alive and active throughout the play. Many parts of the play can be traced back to Captain Alving and the life he once lived. While death seems concrete, it’s funny how it affects each person differently and causes traces of those we love to encircle us and guide us through the rest of our own lives. Sosha
ReplyDeleteI felt that all three pieces, "A Pair of Tickets", Ghosts, and Marjorie Prime, were in one way or another focused on keeping the memory and light of someone who had passed. In "A Pair of Tickets", the narrator is trying to keep her mother's spirit alive, in a way to "prolong [her] grieving" process. One of the main ways this is done is by asking many questions to her mother, ones that will of course remain unanswered. This reminded me of Marjorie Prime because the characters were making primes of their loved ones in order to find answers to those questions and talk to their "loved one" openly for the first time. Furthermore, on page 178 it sort of felt like the narrator's father was acting as a Prime of her mother because he was recalling one of the mother's stories with the help of his memory of his wife's memory and the mother's friends' memories of the mother's memory. It would be likely that during that storytelling (when he's talking about why the mother left the twins), the story being told is at least a little varied than how it actually happened. I also noticed that all three pieces came full circle and all lose ends were tied up some way or another. In Ghosts, both Regina and Oswald end up like their mother and father, respectively; Regina goes off and presumably becomes like her mother, more wild and free, sort of, and Oswald goes off and explores (sort of) like his father did before also dying. In Marjorie Prime, at the end we see Tess' granddaughter taking care of John (even though he isn't a blood relative) just as John took care of his wife and his two in-laws. We also see all of the Primes in one room, finally talking, trying to be "more human" even though none of them are speaking from personal experience. Finally, in "A Pair of Tickets", the theme of capturing moments through photography is explored, and we see that the first people to receive pictures were the twins, and they were also the last-- and in that last picture the narrator is finally apart of their world. I liked how even though these endings were bittersweet, they encompassed the idea that things will end up the way they're supposed to, and that, whether we like it or not, our family and those who raise us will likely never fail to impact our lives and actions even when they are gone.
ReplyDeleteGhosts, “A Pair of Tickets”, and “Marjorie Prime” all have the common theme of a character affecting a story even after their death. We do not meet Captain Alving, Suyuan, or Damien, yet they all have a great influence within the stories. The characters that are not alive leave behind history and secrets that contribute to the plot and emotions in each work. Also, these stories analyze the things we wish we could still stay to ones who have died. In, “A Pair of Tickets,” the narrator recalls, “It seemed as if I wanted to sustain my grief, to assure myself that I had cared deeply enough.” In this story, the narrator does so my visiting China and reconnecting with her mother’s long lost family, in order to better understand and feel connected to her, and to help her grieve. This is similar to the idea of the primes in “Marjorie Prime.” At first, Margorie is afraid to let go of Walter, then Tess of Marjorie, and eventually Jon of Tess. All of these primes were put in place so that those still living could still feel connected to them, and say things that they never had a chance to say, as a part of the grieving process. I think that all three of these stories deal with the idea of loss, and different mechanisms to deal with it. In Ghosts, death reveals secrets. In “Marjorie Prime” death reveals the loss of connection. Finally, in “A Pair of Tickets” death reveals hope and newfound understanding. Although all of the works take a different stance on the idea of death, they put forth the similar ideas that those who die impact our lives no matter what.
ReplyDeleteCat
The theme that connects all three stories is that a dead family member can have more influence on a person than when they were alive. The characters don’t necessarily take their family members for granted, but it takes something like a death to make them realize exactly how much they truly value their family members and their family member’s wishes. In “A pair of tickets” Jingmei only realizes how much finding her half-sisters meant to her and her mother after her mother passed away. It is the memory of her mother and her mother’s wishes that drives her to journey back to China to find her sisters rather than her mother herself. The death of Jingmei’s mother may even be considered a blessing in disguise because although her death was tragic, without it Jingmei would have never found her sisters and in turn never have found herself. The way death is treated in Marjorie Prime is similar because the Primes force each of the characters to really look back and reflect on each of their deceased family members. Again, this could be seen as a blessing in disguise as it is only when a death occurs that each of the characters takes a moment to think about all the memories, both good and bad, that they had with a person. Sometimes, one can get so caught up in life that only a death can allow them to think back about the wonderful life they have led. Death is obviously hard to deal with, but it is sometimes the only Avenue through which we can discover why we loved another person.
ReplyDeleteAll three of these works pretty clearly revolve around themes of death, ghosts, and the effect a person has on those who knew them after they have died. I feel as though Ghosts and Marjorie Prime dealt more with the idea of not having closure, and continuing to deal with the presence of the dead after death, whereas A Pair of Tickets was more about the entire grieving process and ending with Jingmei having found closure. Like Kate, the main character in A Pair of Tickets asking her dead mother questions reminded me of the characters in Marjorie Prime speaking with their dead family members, only she did not receive any answers while the characters in the play did have responses. I thought it was interesting that in Ghosts all Mrs. Alving wanted to do was to erase all memories of Captain Alving, and seemed to have no wish to speak with him, whereas in the other two works, especially in Marjorie Prime, the characters tried to prolong their dead family members memories as long as possible.
ReplyDeleteThe main connection between "Ghosts" and "A Pair of Tickets" are, as expected, the knowns and unknowns that each stories' respective characters may or may not know. For Nora, it's Oswald's true background and how he's following in the destructive footsteps of his father.
ReplyDeleteFor Jing-Mei, it's the Chinese identity that she's never known, and the quest to find her half-sisters. Likewise, in the sisters' eyes their true parents "had died and become spirit ghosts still roaming the earth looking for them." But looking beyond the surface, certain characters of both texts are expected to act a certain way based on their parents. Oswald grew into a syphilitic man-child instead of the brave adventurer his father was. The reader may have expected Mei to instantly connect to Guangzhou, but it took a little time for her to be as comfortable there as she was in San Francisco. This is a tendency of readers in general, to expect "foreign" characters to experience a revelation in their home country.. Instead, what triggered the emotional climax of the excerpt came when her and her half-sisters finally met, proving family is placed above national culture.
I can only assume Mei would want a Mom Prime of her own. Then, she would ask the questions on the tip of her tongue, silenced by her sudden death. Seemingly innocuous questions like: "What was that pork stuff she used to make that had the texture of sawdust? What were the names of the uncles who died of Shanghai?" that have special importance when your mother is gone. At the same time, be careful what you wish for. Mei may receive more answers than she wanted, ones that potentially could ruin the delicate, girlhood image she had of her mother and her family. We saw the breakdown of such a family in "Marjorie Prime," why wouldn't the same occur for this story?
The idea of self is a central motif throughout all three of these works. Whether it be one’s ideals, memories, or family heritage, “Ghosts”, “Majorie Prime”, and “A Pair of Tickets” all depict their main character struggling to find their identities. For example, in Ghosts, Ms. Alving sent Oswald away to boarding school at a very young age so he could be free from the bad influences of Captain Alving. However, despite his upbringing Oswald still grows to mirror his father’s flaws with his drinking and anger issues. On the other side of the coin Amy Tan has also grown to take some of her mother’s positive qualities. As seen in the excerpt, they are both caring and thoughtful individuals who genuinely seek to do the right thing even though that was not possible in Tan’s mother’s case. Adding more intrigue to this balance is how easily memories can be contorted. Things are forgotten, spaces are filled, and distinct flavors are added every time we try to recall an event and sometimes this results in forgetting who we are. In Tan’s case, we, as readers, only hear the story of her mother after it has been retold several times and almost assuredly modified by the flaws of memory. Although we can never be sure of the specific facts in any story, these three have combined to show just how elusive yet defining the idea of self can be.
ReplyDeleteAs in both "Ghosts" and "Marjorie Prime" the author introduces characters who have passed or are otherwise not in the story, and uses them as the central adhesive of the story. These ghosts are what make all the characters come together, and in a way the past acts as an invisible hand on the present. In "A Pair Of Tickets", the mother who has passed so tragically becomes the central piece of dramatic irony that serves to ramp up the tension in the story, as the main character is never sure if she wants to talk about her death up until the very end where she is forced into the situation. Similarly, in "Marjorie Prime" we see a blurring of past and present with the Primes, with their being made primarily out of memories we see that the past has some degree of plasticity and I think that relates to the way that the characters age and change in "A Pair of Tickets". One wonders if they would've even recognized one another had it not been for the pictures that the father sent to the Aunt.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like the tone of "A Pair of Tickets" is perhaps more reminiscent to that of "Marjorie" than of "Ghosts", because there is a certain melancholy that the Jing-Mei has, due to the weight of her news and her being the one to bare it, when compared to the somewhat comedic tragedy of "Ghosts" wherein certain plot points are so overblown in their tragedy as to become comedic.
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ReplyDeleteIn both Ghosts and Marjorie Prime the characters grapple with the memories of their loved ones, both the good and the bad and the truth to their experiences with them. The characters take the memories of the passed and use them to form new and fantastic versions, making them into people they wish they could have been when they were around. In Ghosts Mrs.Alving uses all of her deceased husband's money in order to create an orphanage, to rid herself of what was left of him in her home. Within the town the memory of Mr.Alving would exist through the orphanage, his name would not be tainted and he would live on in a charitable and perfect way (if it hadn't burned down) much like he did in the eyes of Oswald who never knew of his father's affairs. Essentially the same thing is done in Marjorie Prime. The memories of Marjorie, Walter, and Tess live on in the idealized version of themselves for the comfort of their family. The memories they receive are selective, they know about themselves only what they are fed with bad memories of things like Damien's death and why there were really two Toni’s left out of their created mechanic conscious. All of the characters in both plays struggle with the realness and vitality of their memories, trying to figure out what is real and what is created to make the losses they’ve suffered less harsh.
ReplyDeleteThere's a clear link between "Ghosts," "Marjorie Prime," and "A Pair of Tickets," which is reflected through the writing of their respective authors. I think that, in a sense, the personalities and countenances of the characters and the ghosts allow us, as the audience, to resonate with their issues. I think this was mentioned a few times in other comments: the idea of a "ghost" seems to represent the concept of a lingering shadow of one’s past, that one cannot get rid of, and that continues to drag along, and in some cases, haunt an individual. All three of these stories portray depictions of these ghosts in their own unique ways. In this story, the ghosts seem to be "A Pair of Tickets" more optimistic, a possible symbol that the backstory of the main character here was not necessarily negative. In honing on in the decisions taken by the protagonist to find the daughters, the author instills themes of hope rather than of despair, which would have been the case had this story been written in the perspective of the daughters' mother. The ghosts in this story are also, in this regard, shadows; the daughters are continuations of their mother’s arduous lifestyle in China, while the protagonist shadows her life and sustinence in America, as an immigrant. These so-called shadows carry on, as the protagonist goes to China, feeling an oddly sensation of familiarity in the things she sees while she’s there. She isn’t regretful that she was unable to experience these cultural aspects of her background, but rather hopeful and grateful that her shadows have manifested themselves. In other words, there seems to be a general focus on positivity here. However, this cannot be said for the other stories. In my opinion, out of these three stories that we read, "A Pair of Tickets" resonated the most with me, because of this aspect of optimism and positivity, which I felt were either nonexistent or not as strong in the other two works of writing. This serves to show how being sanguine can lead to success, and how in retrospect, such memories, or "ghosts" need not be harmful. In fact, they can be helpful, in helping one better understand themselves, their background, and the world around them.
ReplyDeleteIn “Ghosts”, it wasn’t until long after Mr. Alving’s death did Mrs. Alving realized her husband’s lasting effects on her entire family and life. In “Marjorie Prime”, it wasn’t until the death of their loved ones did the characters of the movie re-envision and evaluate their pasts. And finally, in “A Pair of Tickets”, it wasn’t until after Suyuan’s death did Jing-Mei come to realize the inherent connection she possessed to her Chinese heritage. It is evident that these three narratives encompass a similar theme: the death of an individual, whether close or distant, and how their existence ultimately influences the lives of others. The living continue to feel and discern the everlasting effects of another’s life long after they pass, and either suffer or gain mentally as a result. The apparency of the dead’s influence on the individual is realized through analyzing these stories, and the reader is subsequently able to conceptualize the relationships they make in their lifetime in a much more meaningful way. Through her mother’s death, Jing-Mei’s underlying connection to her Chinese culture and heritage emerges as she makes the journey to acquaint herself with her half-sisters in China. Through Mr. Alving’s death, Mrs. Alving comes to the realization that the effects of his transgressions are inescapable, despite her efforts to alienate him. And finally, through the deaths of Walter, Marjorie, and Tess, each character is able to come to terms with the past through discourse with the holographic Primes.
ReplyDeleteLike Ghosts and Marjorie Prime, A Pair of Tickets is heavily influenced by the legacies of family members who have not only dies, but have left an impression on the memories of their loved ones. All three of these stories would be effective stories to write about for the prompt about characters the readers never meet. In Marjorie Prime the audience never meets Walter, only Walter Prime. We have to learn about his personality and the effect he had on his family through the recollection of Jon and Marjorie, and to some extent Tess. Walter, while only being the first prime the audience meets, is the most important as he establishes the family dynamic that drives the character's motivations and reactions. In Ghosts, the audience never meets Captain Alving, although it is clear that the memories of his hidden abuse and invented integrity are the catalyst for the downfall of the Alving family. Mrs. Alving tries to escape her married past but by doing so invites the Captains legacy into her life once more. Like these two stories, A Pair of Tickets relies heavily on a characters memory of a dead family member. The narrators mother has died, and Jing-mei must go and travel to the origin of her mother's past. A Pair of Tickets shares many of the same elements as Ghosts and Marjorie Prime, but one of the most striking is how we can replace the dead in our mind. The letter that the Joy Luck club wrote, fabricating a continued life Jing-mei's mother seemed to be an archaic prime. They have invented a memory. Then when the sisters meet and there is a resemblance to the mother but then it fades, it is like how the Pastor remarks how similar Oswald is to his father, but Mrs. Alving vehemently denies this resemblance. Separating family from individuality is a line that Ibsen and Amy Tan do effectively and poignantly.
ReplyDeleteIn “A pair of tickets, Ghosts, and Marjorie Prime the thematic element of time is prevalent. In Marjorie Prime, the past, specifically people from the past live in the future in the form of a prime. In Ghosts, Oswald and Regina both play roles that mimic Captain Alving and Johanna. The past is significant in the main character’s lives and influences how they live. Marjorie continues to live on with Walter Prime, who essentially is an ideal, modified version of the true Walter. Similarly, Mrs. Alving in Ghosts hides the truth from Oswald and the rest of society by creating a fake reputation for Captain Alving.In the short story “A pair of tickets, by Amy Tan. Jing Mei's perspective about her family and her mom’s long lost children were dramatically changed when she learned the truth. In all three stories, a character from the past plays a pivotal role. Although the three stories have similar thematic elements, each story suggests to the reader that the past can bring almost anything to the present. In Marjorie Prime, the presence of a prime allows for comfort but also brought regret and sadness. In Ghosts, many people’s foundational beliefs were challenged when the truth was revealed. In “A pair of tickets” Jing Mei found closure and peace when she finally understood her family connection. The relationship between the past, present and the future is a strong thematic element that I observed throughout all three stories.
ReplyDeleteKaby
After reading “A Pair of Tickets” by Amy Tan, I immediately noticed some similarities with the movie Marjorie Prime and Ghosts. At first I only noticed connections to the movie. One was when Jing-me was recounting stories that her mother had told her. This reminded me of the stories the primes had been told, because they didn't get the whole unbiased story. They only remember what people told them which are often distant memories or things told to them by others. When she actually meets the twins she gets some different information. I also made a connection when she said it was like talking to her mother, but not really. This reminded me of when Tess was having trouble talking to the primes because it seemed like the people she once knew, but there was something different. There were also many similarities to Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts. The most apparent one was the memory of people after they are gone. Because of the twins, Jing-me will have the memory of her mother everyday. She also probably has a sense that she and her mother are similar, and she passed down many things to her, like Captain Alving and Oswald.
ReplyDeleteThe common “Ghost” of Marjorie Prime, Ghosts, and A Pair of Tickets was obvious to the reader, the dead family member. However it was interesting to see the that each story showed the coping of dead loved one in a different way, showing that the same ghost can have various ways of haunting people. In Marjorie Prime and Ghost the audience was able to see how each character strived to remember their loved one in a positive way, even if it meant manipulating who they really were. More obviously in Marjorie Prime with the use of the technology that could be fed false memories, manipulation was much more easier. In Ghosts Mrs. Alving was able to show off a false image of her husband to the outside world portraying him as a good man with the creation of the orphanage similarly manipulating herself and the public. In my opinion A Pair of Tickets was the only story in which the main character moved on in a healthy way, uniting with her twin sisters to keep the memory of her mom alive. This coping mechanism caused no manipulation of either her or anyone else's memories of her mother, something we didn't see in the other two stories. However I wished the story had gone on a little further to see what Jing-Mei Woo would have told her sisters about her mother. Would there have been manipulation of memories there? What did the twins remember if anything about their mother?
ReplyDeleteIn this story, I felt the presence of Ghosts in Jing-mei's interaction with Chinese culture and her relatives, and I felt that the memories that Jing-mei's father describes reminded me of Marjorie Prime. When Jing-mei arrives in China and feels herself becoming "more Chinese,” I felt the present of ghosts begin to be seen in the narrative. To me, Jing-Mei is feeling the “Ghosts” of her lack of a Chinese upbringing present in seeing the people around her who have been raised the same way as her mother and father. Jing-Mei also sees Ghosts when she meets her sisters; she, even in her name (pure essence of sisters), is representative of the sacrifice her mother made to survive on the road. When Jing-Mei sees herself in her sisters and sees her mother in all three of them in the photograph, she is truly seeing the Ghost that her mother has left behind; her legacy after death.
ReplyDeleteI also felt that Jing-Mei’s father reminded me of Jon when he trains the Primes. In telling Aiyi and Jing-Mei Jing-Mei’s mother’s story, he is in a way keeping a “prime” of the mother alive; her memory lives on in the concept that he creates of the mother in the minds of these people who have never met her.
The underlying theme that runs throughout all three texts is the strength of family bonds and the impact the past has on humans. They expose the illusion we have that our past is the past, while, in reality, it remains present in our lives. I found many similarities between Tan’s “A Pair of Tickets”, Ibsen’s “Ghosts” and “Marjorie Prime” in the sense that protagonists that have passed away continue to have an enormous impact on the ones they left behind. Tan’s short story honors the theory that “If you don’t get lost, there’s a chance you may never be found.” During Jing-Mei’s journey of following her mother’s request to travel to China and “find her inner Chinese”, she ends up finding herself. This debunks the theory that as much as we sometimes like to think, as humans, that we are self-reliant and independent, our family and past will always have a deep-rooted impact on our identity. One could underestimate this impact and wonder, “how does that define and affect me”. In fact, as we learned from these pieces, it does have a much bigger influence than one could ever expect. Despite Jing-Mei’s American upbringing and previous disregard of her Chinese roots, after exploring China and learning more about her family and her history, she discovers a part of herself that she didn’t even know existed. This answers a question I constantly ask myself, “Why do I let my Lebanese background play such a big role in my life and identity? It is just my ethnicity. It has nothing to do with what makes me me. I was born in America and I live here ten months a year and only visit Lebanon for two’’. Nevertheless, I share the same feelings of deep connectedness and closeness to Lebanon that Jing-Mei felt when she reconnected with her long-lost sister. It seems like you are sometimes not even aware of this feeling until you experience it, and things just click and feel right. Likewise, in “Ghosts”, we see Mrs. Alving trying hard to forget her husband Captain Alving, but the inevitable past keeps returning. Despite his absence throughout the play, he still plays a major role in it. The same is presented in “Marjorie Prime” when Tess’ impact is still enormous despite his demise. His absence changed forever the family and their dynamics. At a certain point, we all come up to the conclusion that we cannot erase or ignore our past as it runs, literally, through our veins.
ReplyDeleteAn apparent theme in all three of these works, “Ghosts”, Marjorie Prime and “A Pair of Tickets”, is the effect that the dead have on the living, even after they are gone. After watching Marjorie Prime, I grouped the storyline along with Ibsen’s play, “Ghosts”. I believe both of these works struggle with the concept of closure and how we are able to progress in life after we have lost someone. In both of these the dead are not really dead (literally). The relationships that Captain Alving had with his family members and the ones that Tess had with her family members were ones of turmoil and tension. After Captain Alving and Marjorie’s death the characters still fostered a sense of resentment for their dead family members. Mrs. Alving resented her husband for all her made her cover up and lie about and Tess resented her mother for not loving her the way she felt she deserved. However, the difference in these two works is that Mrs. Alving seemed to want to forget about Captain Alving after his death but the characters of Marjorie Prime seemed to prolong the deaths for years by talking to their primes.
ReplyDeleteThis is where “A Pair of Tickets” is similar to Marjorie Prime. Both of these works focused more on the grieving process and how the characters went about mourning their loved ones. In Kate’s case she decided the visit China in order to find her mother's long lost daughters. She embarks on this emotional journey to better understand, perhaps connect her, to her mother. This journey finally helps her to find closure and aides in her grieving process. In Marjorie Prime the living are almost afraid to let go of the dead, this is where the primes come in. Marjorie doesn't want to lose Walter, Tess doesn't want to lose Marjorie and finally Jon does not want to lose Tess. They use the primes to “speak” to the dead and to feel connected to them. By talking to the primes, the characters could recount fond memories that made the dead not feel so, dead.
Colleen
In “A Pair of Tickets”, Ghosts, and Marjorie Prime, there is a prevalent theme of bringing the dead back to life. In “A Pair of Tickets”, a daughter takes up her mothers goal to find her sisters. As the daughter goes on this journey, she gains a greater understanding of her mother, and their relationship. Her mother dying opened the doors for her to meet her new sisters, and she most likely wouldn’t have met them otherwise. As one family member dies, another, in this case two, are “born”. In Ghosts, the theme revolves more around parallelism between the living and the dead, and seeing people return in different ways. Mr. Alvin is represented through Oswald and the house maid was represented by Regina. In Marjorie Prime, the dead are almost living again, however they only know what they are told. They live through the memories associated with them. However, they’re self aware. The primes know that they are primes, but still try and become as much like the person they are imitating. In this case, the living could almost alter their perception of their deceased loved one, because they may only remember bits and pieces of what they are telling the primes. It very weird, but it’s an interesting theory. Bringing the dead back to life has many different meanings, and it has taken different forms throughout time and in different cultures. In Japan, death is very sacred, and they light paper lanterns which they float down a river to help guide the souls of the dead to the spirit world, and in Hispanic cultures the Dia de los Muertos is literally the Day of the Dead, and families celebrate and remember the lives of their passed loved ones, and try and help them in their spiritual journey. Halloween was originally a day where the dead walked among the living, and everybody wore masks to that you couldn't tell whether they were dead or not. All throughout history is seems like human have been trying to bridge the gap between the dead and the living, and “A Pair of Tickets”, Ghosts, and Marjorie Prime are all different interpretation of accomplishing that goal.
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