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Julie Simansky
K. Shimabukuro
English 9
3 March 2016
Conflict and Characterization Essay
The example of characterization and conflict I am going to use is “The
Jade Peony’ “by Wayson Choy. It is a story about a grandmother and her
grandson who except and explore their heritage together, and it is told in the
grandson’s (Sek-Lung’s) point of view. Sek-Lung and his Grandmama spend a
lot of time together gathering precious things, such as fragments of broken glass,
pottery, and costume jewelry. They often found these by digging through the
trash. It came to the point that people started thinking they were beggars.
Grandmama doesn’t escape the ravages of old age so she spent her time
making special chimes out of the things she and Sek-lung found together. She
told Sek-Lung of a lover she had had and how he never returned to her, but she
had a jade pendent to remember him by. Grandmama and Sek-lung made a wind
chime for Grandmama’s death, so that her spirit could properly say good bye. As
the story comes to a close, Grandmama dies and the Jade Peony’ goes to SekLung.
There are quite a few conflicts that occur throughout this story. Sek-Lung’s
siblings, Liang, Jung, and Kiam argue with their father over their Chinese School,
“And you do not complain about Latin, French, or German in your English
school?” Father rattled his newspaper, a signal that his patience was ending’
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(83). This is a man verses man conflict over school work. Sek-Lung and his
Grandmama are accused of acting like beggars”Yet she and Sek-Lung poke
through those awful things as if—they were beggars!”(81). This is also an
example of man verses man, but it is over dumpster-diving for precious items to
be used for the wind chimes. Grandmama is fighting against the death that is
drawing ever closer, “That is my body fighting with death.”(84). I think that death
would be considered nature so it was man verses nature over surviving.
There are numerous characters in this short story; the two main ones are
Sek-Lung and Grandmama. That does not mean that the other characters are
just flat. As the audience reads this story they can figure out what these other
characters are like, ‘Without warning, she punched me in the back; I jumped’
(81). That tells you that Sek-Lung’s sister (Liang) is not very nice towards her
younger brother. Although the rest of Sek-Lung’s family are not flat they are
indirect characters, to story does not give you direct insight about their lives. SekLung is a direct character, ‘my lung infection in my fifth and sixth years’ (83), you
learn about his past, not just what he is currently saying.
‘The Jade Peony’ is a wonderful short story about heritage and love
between a grandmother and her grandson. Their family does not approve of their
trash-hunting-hobby of finding what they consider precious, so they keep it a
secret. These precious objects are used to make wind chimes, the main one in
this story being a wind chime that helps Grandmama say goodbye to this world
properly. At the end of the story, the grandmother does die, leaving Sek-Lung to
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have her precious jade peony. This short work of fiction has numerous conflicts
and round characters that will entertain the audience throughout the story.