Yamamoto Essay, Research Paper

“Yamamoto does reveal through her fiction the sorry plight of many female immigrants caught in unhappy marriages. What made the lives of these Issei women especially bleak was that unlike Black women, for example, who in similar situations often turned to one another for support, rural Issei women were not only separated by the Pacific from their mothers and grandmothers, but often cut off from one another as well. Having to take care of children and to work alongside their husbands on isolated farms, they had little time and opportunity to cultivate friendships with other women. The only members of the same sex to whom they could embosom their thoughts were their own daughters, who all too often had engrossing problems of their own.

“Seventeen Syllables” both begins and ends with a conversation between the mother and daughter, which is the only access the reader has to the mother’s passion about writing and her past secrets. Both mother and daughter realize the difficulties in communications between one another, and suspect its dangers, yet they continue to have intimate discussions. Because we are only given Rosie’s perspective, we are aware of her reservations. For example, when confronted with the intense conversation between she and her mother at the end of the story, she thinks to herself, “don’t tell me now … tell me tomorrow, tell me next week, don’t tell me today.” (Yamamoto 390) Although she realizes this could be the end of her world, as she knows it she listens as a way to support her mother. The mothers motive for sharing with her daughter in this way can only be gleaned from Cheung’s description of life for these female immigrants. By significantly placing the conversations at both ends of the story, Yamamoto stresses these conversations, and further questions the healthy nature of such talk between mother and daughter by only giving us the daughter’s perspective and allowing the reader to see her fear and reluctance in wanting to hear all that her mother has to say. The reader cannot help but feel the burden the daughter will be sharing with the mother. And while the plight of the mother is real, the reader cannot ignore how the isolation and loneliness of this type of community, or lack there of, has effected Tome’s judgment in mothering.

The nature of the relationship between mother and daughter is exposed immediately through the first conversation. As Tome reveals Ume to her daughter, she clearly wants Rosie to share in her understanding of her life and passion, and stretches her imagination to believe that this might be possible for a girl in her early teens. Even through the daughter’s perspective, it is obvious how although the mother expects and wishes for her daughter to understand, Tome suspects by the shallow responses that Rosie gives, how little Rosie either comprehends or cares. Rosie’s politeness is an obvious sign to her that at the very least, she does not want to hurt her mother’s feelings. The next significant conversation between mother and daughter comes at the end; where family the mother shares secrets about herself that normally would not be shared with someone so young. Even Rosie perceives this awkwardness, as she thinks that hearing this information from her mother may actually “level her life, her world to the very ground.”(Yamamoto 390) Rosie’s anticipation, rightly so, that her perception of her parents will never be the same.

The isolation that Cheung describes, which drives mothers to choose their often preoccupied daughters as confidants can be destructive to both people involved. The daughter may learn things about which she is not emotionally capable of processing, and the mother may later feel guilt for affecting her daughter’s life in such a profoundly negative way. The promises that she expects of Rosie are too much to ask of a daughter and when Tome realizes the absurdity of asking her young teen daughter to agree to “never marry” (Yamamoto 391), or possibly the absurdity of realizing who was responding, she responds by saying to herself, “you fool”(Yamamoto 391) The regret the mother expresses is a result of her recognizing the mistake she made in revealing herself in this way, or possibly her awareness of how young this confidant is and how just as with the haiku, Rosie does not understand all the complications life has to offer and has little comprehension of the world in which her mother exists.

Bibliography

Horth, Martha. http://web.reed.edu/academic/english/courses/English560/Yamamoto.html, (6

Apr 2001).

Yamanoto, Hisaye. “Seventeen Syllables.” Literature and the Writing Process.

Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X Day, and Robert Funk. 5th ed. Upper Saddle

River: Prentice, 1999. 383-91.