Maxine&langston

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorCollege, Undergraduate May 2001

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In the following essay we are going to be comparing and contrasting two stories from two well known writers. Chinese-American Silence by Maxine Hong Kingston and Salvation by Langston Hughes . The Main Similarity of this essays is clearly the influence that communities has on their own identity. Branching from this main point ,as you read, more similarities will unfold. We would end up with a critic of different types of communities, and how it affected their lives.

Salvation by Langston Hughes is about a young African American who experiences a unenlightened situation. To bypass it without any obvious damage ,he pretends to see clearly what the community is trying so hard to show him. He ends up in bed with tears of resentment ,for he has lied to everybody, and does not seem to grasp the courage to admit it.

Chinese-American Silence by Maxine Kingston , is about a girl confronted with problems of her culture that conflicts with her development on an American society.

problems as speech, confidence, and self image all sum up in this story about a girl trying to adjust.

For most of us living in the western society, family is our first community. Families usually have big expectations of their children. In the case of Langston and Maxine this expectations and constant confrontations lead to their own confusion. Later on , this confusion expands like a virus which cure is only to adjust as well as possible.

Langston has to enter his religious community and Maxine has to enter the American community. Due to confusion, Langston found as a solution to lie to be able to fit in his religious environment and Maxine became silent. This is a clear example of how communities affected them as individuals. But lets not view community...