Fish Cheeks Commonlit Answer Key Pdf (2025)

FAQs

What is the central idea of the Fish Cheeks? ›

The main idea of Fish Cheeks is to be proud of one's identity. Throughout the entire story, Amy tries to deny her Chinese heritage but learns over time that she does not need to discard her background for the sake of others. She realizes there is strength in being different.

"Fish Cheeks" is a 1987 one-page narrative essay by Chinese-American author Amy Tan and her first published essay. The work was first published in Seventeen and covers a Christmas Eve dinner when Tan was 14 years old. It was subsequently published as a part of The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings.

In "Fish Cheeks", an autobiographical narrative by Amy Tan, fourteen-year-old Amy is thrown into a humiliating dinner with her Chinese family and the American boy on whom she has a crush. Years later, Amy reflects back on this embarrassing meal and realizes something about her parents and her heritage.

The major conflict of this story is Amy trying to impress Robert, but cannot do so because she finds her family and Chinese culture embarrassing compared to the American one.

Amy Tan's "Fish Cheeks" serves to highlight the struggles of cultural identity and acceptance. The main claim is that embracing one's heritage is crucial for self-acceptance. Tan uses personal anecdotes and vivid descriptions as evidence to illustrate her embarrassment and eventual understanding of her cultural roots.

The climax of Fish Cheeks, is when the families are having a meal and belching. For Amy, the situation is described as her most embarrassing moment. The reason is that the customs of her family and Robert's family clashed.

The tone of the story is reflective as well as somewhat light hearted. She is reflects on this experience and about how her thoughts and feelings as a younger person about her Chinese identity have evolved as she has grown older.

The irony of the last sentence of the essay is that even though it was all her favorite foods, tan had still been embarrassed by them. 8. Paragraph 3 is a passage of pure description. Why does Tan linger over the food?

Tan's mother went out of her way to prepare a disturbingly Chinese dinner because she wanted to demonstrate to her guests as well as her daughter that their Chinese heritage was nothing to be embarrassed about but rather something to be proud of. She proved this by taking the menu to the extreme.

However, Amy is humiliated by the smell and appearance of the fish's head, and she feels that her family's Chinese traditions are being ridiculed. She is embarrassed and does not want Robert to see her eating the fish's head, so she wishes she could disappear.

What does Tan's mother mean when she says your only shame is to have shame? ›

What did Tan's mother mean when she said to Amy, “Your only shame is to have shame”? Her mother is attempting to point out that Amy should not be embarrassed about her culture. Amy's actions at dinner were embarrassing to her mother. Amy embarrassed the entire family by taking the fish cheeks.

Novelist Amy Tan narrates and records a past experience of clashing cultures in her narrative essay "Fish Cheeks" to illustrate how we should not be ashamed of our cultural background but rather accept and embrace it.

In this short story, the character of fish cheeks symbolizes Chinese culture—something that stands out as embarrassing. The use of fish cheeks as a symbol brings out the concept of culture through Amy Tan's life experience. These fish cheeks symbolize her Chinese heritage.

Tan's setting of Christmas for a traditional Chinese dinner, shared with the American boy on whom the protagonist, Amy, has a crush, emphasizes the girl's dual identity as an Asian American, a reality she is confronting head on.

“The Fish” Themes

The poem illustrates how that empathy can be humbling, reminding people that, even if they might be used to seeing themselves as distinct from animals, they're really in the same boat: animals and humans alike take part in all the mess, struggle, and beauty of life.

The author develops the narrator's point of view by detailing her anxieties and embarrassment in vivid detail. The narrator is mortified by the presence of Robert and wishes to escape from the dinner, but her parents' insistence that she stay highlights her feelings of helplessness.

It describes the back-and-forth dynamic of fishermen, who are the original environmentalists, and scientists, who not that long ago considered fish an endless resource. It explains why fish farming is not the answer—and why sustainable fishing is, and how to help return the oceans to their natural ecological balance.

The tone of the story is reflective as well as somewhat light hearted. She is reflects on this experience and about how her thoughts and feelings as a younger person about her Chinese identity have evolved as she has grown older.