Change In 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's'

Change is never easy to accommodate to. Whether it is a change in political views, social values, or even in the views on traditions and cultures, it may be easy to cling to old perceptions, and staying in a comfort zone that makes living in a world that is constantly changing. Changes that have been more prevalent here in the United States, like issues surrounding immigration families, makes it is not only difficult for the families to become accustomed to a new language, culture and tradition, it is also difficult for the citizens already living in the United States to learn and adjust to the new cultures being introduced. Although it may be difficult to understand other cultures and traditions, citizens already living there are not fully …show more content…
In LuLing’s narrative, the details of a curse were believed to haunt her family due to the bad occurrences that happened to her mother/nursemaid Precious Auntie; her father and husband were killed on her wedding day and to avoid pity Precious Auntie swallowed burning hot ink resin, as the Lieu’s had an ink family business. The ink only caused an ugly scarring of the mouth that took her ability to speak. She would use hand gestures and hisses to communicate. Precious Auntie would always protect LuLing since it was believed that the curse would follow her, and at one point of her life, LuLing believes it finally had when Ruth fell on the playground and lost her voice herself with the impact and, “...precipitated an earlier bout with speechlessness. When her mother LuLing devised a sand tray for Ruth to write her requests upon, LuLing suddenly interpreted the words as an attempt of her dead Chinese nursemaid, Precious Auntie, to communicate with her.” (Terry) the fact that LuLing now had a daughter who could not speak, brought up the remembrance of her dead mother and no matter if she was in China or in the United States, the curse will follow. The said curse impacted any decision making that LuLing would make to avoid any dark fate and throughout the years the sand bar was heavily used and Ruth. In this chapter of Ruth’s life, there was also a prominent theme of death that can be explained with the suicide attempts Precious Auntie would withstand, with the swallowing of ink and finally, slitting her throat when LuLing deceived her as a mother when in reality, she had not read the note her mother gave her to present the truth. Due to this experience, whenever anything was going wrong with her life, LuLing would threaten to kill herself,, “ You wish I dead?... Okay maybe I die soon.” (Tan 49) due