Comparison and contrast methods in analysis

¶ … Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America." By Mary Paik Lee, and "Coming of Age in Mississippi," by Anne Moody. Specifically, it will compare and contrast the hardships that Mary and Anne had to overcome. How were their struggles similar and different? These two women at first seem quite divergent from each other in experience and culture, but after reading these two books, it is clear these women have much in common, from their experience of prejudice and hate, to their ability to create meaningful lives for themselves while sharing their experiences with others. These are two women from different cultures and generations, who, if they had ever had the chance to meet, would probably have become fast friends.

TWO WOMEN'S EXPERIENCES

At first glance, Asian Mary Paik Lee and Black Anne Moody could not be more different. One was an Asian immigrant who came to the country in 1905; and the other was a poor black living in the South at the height of the Civil Rights movement. Certainly, these two very different women, from far dissimilar backgrounds and generations, could have nothing in common. Yet, as the reader delves into their stories, they discover these two women have far more in common that first envisioned.

Both women lived in abject poverty when they were young. Moody was born in Mississippi in 1940, but her description of her childhood home could have been taken straight from the annals of slavery. "I'm still haunted by dreams of the time we lived on Mr. Carter's plantation. Lots of Negroes lived on his place. Like Mama and Daddy they were all farmers. We all lived in rotten two-room shacks. But ours stood out from the others because it was up on the hill with Mr. Carter's big white house..." (Moody 1). In contrast, Lee was born in Korea in 1900, and her experience was actually quite the same as Moody's. Her family in Korea was prosperous, but the Japanese, who occupied Korea, conscripted her family's home, and they ended up leaving Korea with nothing more than a few possessions. They settled in Hawaii where they labored long hours on a sugar cane plantation, just as Moody's family labored long hours on a cotton plantation.

Both women also faced persecution and prejudice because of their race, and both women reacted differently to this hatred. Lee remembers being turned away from a house of worship simply because of her race. "I don't want dirty Japs in my church." Lee protested, "Would it make any difference if I told you we are not Japanese but Korean?" He replied, "What the hell's the difference? You all look alike to me" (Lee 54). Moody too faced prejudice and hatred, and because her story takes place at a time when blacks were struggling for their civil rights, she faced it differently than Lee did. She took part in a sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter during her college years, and writes about the experience in her book:

The white students, (in the store), started chanting all kinds of anti-Negro slogans... The rest of the seats except the three we were occupying had been roped off to prevent others from sitting down. A couple of the boys took one end of the rope and made it into a hangman's noose. Several attempts were made to put it around our necks (Moody 237).

Moody grew up in a generation of change and revolt, while Lee grew up in a generation who put their hope and faith in God's hands, and this might be where the two women differ the most. Lee says of her family, "they had expected life to be difficult -- but they had put their faith in God and were determined to survive whatever hardships came their way" (Lee 132). Moody, on the other hand, sees a generation lost, with no hope, especially after President Kennedy is shot and killed in Dallas. She thinks, "A world this evil,' I thought, 'should be black, blind, and deaf, and without any feelings at all. Then there won't be any color to be seen, no hatred to be heard, and no pain to be felt'" (Moody 320). In contrast, Lee spends her life moving away from poverty and creating a good and happy life in California, and she sees hope for the future, and better days for anyone who is willing to work hard. She says near the end of her narrative, "where [now] everything is possible if they work hard enough" (Lee 129). This might be partly because of the difference in their ages and generations, for the children of the 1950s and 1960s were revolutionaries, who hoped for change and peace, which the children of earlier generations were more concerned with simply surviving, as Lee and her family were.

Lee continually fell back on her Christianity throughout her life to help her make it through the hard times, and at the end, that is where she finds the most comfort and solace. "Now I am free of cares and worry and am just trying to relax and enjoy what little time is left. I attend a church regularly where most of the members are black, because it is there I feel most comfortable" (Lee 130). Moody was involved in her church in her youth, in fact she even taught Sunday School when she was in high school, but as she grew older, religion and faith played a far smaller role in her life than it did in Lee's. However, one kind act from a white minister in a white church does give her a bit of hope, when he allows a group of black students to worship in his church, but it is intermingled with a growing loss of faith in God. Moody remembers, "I recognized some of the whites, sitting around me in that church. If they were praying to the same God I was, then even God, I thought, was against me. When the services were over, the minister invited us to visit again. He said it as if he meant it, and I began to have a little hope" (Moody 255). These two differing views of Christianity distinguish these two women, and illustrate how different generations see the world differently, worship differently, and gain hope and faith from different perspectives.