Short Takes

Part 5:

Essays that I read this week:
1. "Confessions" by Amy Tan
2. "Planet Unflinching" by Kelly Cherry

Analysis of "Confessions"

In "Confessions" Amy Tan tells of her childhood memory of her mother almost killing her to further reveal her relationship of her mother and the strain of losing loved ones. For most of the part the essay remains in the past scene until three paragraphs from the end she jumps 25 years to when she first remembered that memory and her present relationship with her mother, who has Alzheimer's disease and doesn't remember ever hurting Tan.  This choice to include both of these scenes/commentary pulls at the reader's emotions, who doesn't know how to feel toward the mother. Her blend of the past and present contributes to this feeling as well. I did not notice this until I read the essay a second or third time, but the first sentence foreshadows the present mind state of her mother. "My mother's thoughts reach back like the winter tide, exposing the wreckage of a former shore." Initially I thought this had been a statement toward the grief that the mother is feeling after the death of her husband and son; yet, it also captures her state of mind in Alzheimer's. In this sentence alone Tan blends both the past and present to expose such a horrid experience and leave the reader pitying but shocked at the mother.