Analyse af 'Feathers from a thousand Li away'

The life of travelling can be very hard and there will be ups and downs in it. When you have a big dream that grows into something really beautiful it can be hard when someone takes it away. “Feathers from thousands Li away” by Amy Tan is an extract from the short story “The joy luck club” about an old woman with a big American dream. The theme in this extract is transformation because it is about development and how things suddenly can change and transform.

“Feathers from a thousand Li away” is a text about an old woman who bought a swan. The bird was once a duck that stretched its neck to become a goose but instead it became a swan. It even became a bigger and more beautiful bird than it wanted to be. The woman also had a dream similar to the duck; that she stretched her neck to go to America. "In America, I will have a daughter just like me. But over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband's belch. Over there nobody will look down on her because I will make her speak only perfect American English…”(Page 1, line 9-12). Just like the duck wanted to be something big, the old woman did as well. We can therefore conclude that the old woman does not want the same as she had experienced herself for her daughter. We can tell why she wants to go to America because she is not satisfied with her life in Shanghai. But then she came to America and the swan was taken away from her. Now she only had one feather; and that feather was how little her dream had become. The swan had carried her dream along with it. The woman got old, got herself a daughter and she wanted to give her daughter the feather. When she gives it, she would like to say: "This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions”(Page 1, line 21-22). With that, she means that all she tried to do with her dream was with good intentions. She did her best to make a good life for her. But not everyone can be lucky enough to be a big and beautiful swan. And your travel of life may not go as you thought it would: “And she had a daughter who grew up speaking only English and swallowing more Coca-Cola than sorrow”(Page 1, line 19-20). But if you look on the other hand she achieved her dream, but it was not as she thought it would be. We all think that the American Dream is a guaranteed land of opportunities and happiness. At her home in Shanghai her dream had grown into being big and beautiful as a swan but when she came to America only a feather was gotten.