Indledning
Evil Winds is a short story written by Julie Chen, who is a chinese-american writer. Julie Chen was born in Hong Kong, China.
At the age of five, she and her family emigrated to Brooklyn, New York. However, she is currently living in The Netherlands.
Throughout Evil Winds the reader is mainly introduced to Rose and her parents, whose names we are not told.
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Uddrag
Her concern may come from the fact that the mother herself grew up poor, and she doesn’t want that life for Rose.
This might be what has led them to emigrate to the states, in hope of changing their conditions and quality of life.
Rose’s mother has a very clear idea of how she wants her daughter's life to play out.
She gets irritated when Rose doesn't behave accordingly to her idea: “When I heard her talking and laughing on the telephone with her American friends, jabbering in English much faster than she could speak Chinese by then, a part of me wanted to run over and wrench the phone from her hands?” (P. 3 l. 100-103)
This is an example that displays the mother´s desperation. She has a need to be in control, only because she wants what she thinks is best for Rose.
The father gets sick and eventually dies of what the mother calls: “evil spirits, curses, and old age (p. 4 l. 160)”, which actually is cancer.
It is also shown here how the mother has strong superficial beliefs. The family now consists of only two, which leads the mother to finally act upon her wishes for Rose.
That means making Rose quit dancing and get her thinking about her future.
The title “Evil Winds” is a Buddhist term that the mother uses a couple of times throughout the story.
The mother is convinced that the winds are what pushes a person onto different paths during his/her lifetime:
“The evil winds had begun to foment around the time Rose was in eighth grade, when she auditioned for that other ballet school, the legendary one.” (p. 4 l. 133-134).
This audition is a true eye-opener for the mother.
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