Amy Tan, The Opposite of Fate

Bella Adams (University of Sunderland)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Delphine Munos (Université de Liège)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2003

Places

United States, California (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Autobiography (literary)
- Essay Collection

Resources

What is The Opposite of Fate? For Amy Tan, the opposite of fate is “choice, chance, luck, faith, forgiveness, forgetting, freedom of expression, the pursuit of happiness, the balm of love, a sturdy attitude, a strong will, a bevy of good-luck charms, adherence to rituals, appeasement through prayer, trolling for miracles, a plea to others to throw a lifeline, … the generous provision of that by strangers and loved ones”, and, above all, “hope” (p. 3). The opposite of fate is also a recurrent issue in Tan’s fictional texts: from the beginning of The Joy Luck Club (1989), in the swan-feather mother’s opening vignette about a swan, “a creature that became more than what was hoped for” (p. 17), to the e…

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3095 words

Citation: Adams, Bella. "The Opposite of Fate". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 April 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=15602, accessed 04 May 2024.]

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