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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 3 page essay that discusses how Canadian authors Michael Ondaatje and Sky Lee in their novels In the Skin of a Lion and Disappearing Moon Café offer narratives that portray immigrant experience in Canadian history. Ondaatje tells the story of Macedonian and Greek workmen who built the bridges, buildings and other structures that transformed the transformed nineteenth century landscapes into twentieth century cities. Lee relates the saga of a Chinese immigrant family over the course of several generations, focusing on the women of the cultural and economic factors that influenced their lives in both China and Canada and how these women were active participants in the Wong family saga. As this suggests, the novels are quite different, but similarly are insightful in the way that they offer insight into Canadian immigrant and cultural history. No additional sources cited.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khondlee.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
experience in Canadian history. Ondaatje tells the story of Macedonian and Greek workmen who built the bridges, buildings and other structures that transformed the transformed nineteenth century landscapes into twentieth
century cities. Lee relates the saga of a Chinese immigrant family over the course of several generations, focusing on the women of the cultural and economic factors that influenced their
lives in both China and Canada and how these women were active participants in the Wong family saga. As this suggests, the novels are quite different, but similarly are insightful
in the way that they offer insight into Canadian immigrant and cultural history. In Lees novel, cultural influences and paradigms transported from Chinas patriarchal social structure continue to shape the
lives of Wong family women for generations. For example, Lee graphically portrays Mui Lans mistreatment of her daughter-in-law, whom she refers to as a "no-good female-bag" (Lee 29), but Lee
also relates this idea to its social/cultural context and Mui Lans intense longing for a grandson, as the birth of a boy would "fulfill the most fundamental purpose in her
life" (Lee 31). While the modern reader views such a sentiment as purely sexist and unethical, Lee explains that, to Mui Lan, a grandson represents the continuation of her family
in the only way that is culturally significant, as he would link her present to that "golden chain of male to male" (Lee 31). As this suggests, Lees perspective
is primarily on the microcosm of the family, its social interactions and evolution over the generations; however, the context in which the story is told also adds insight into the
experience of Chinese immigrants in Canada. The novel opens with a prologue that pictures the family patriarch, Wong Gwei Chang, struggling in the Canadian hinterland in 1892. Gwei Chang has
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