Living Vicariously

             It is often assumed that fictional stories are simply built upon elaborate and fanciful ideas. This, however, is not entirely true. Authors of fiction may indeed write fabricated tales of tiny, mischievous leprechauns and genies who grant your every wish, but if looked at closer, similarities can actually be seen between such fabrications and reality. No matter how extreme a story may be, some amount of truth can be found, for every story is based on someone's knowledge and experiences someone's life.
             Living vicariously- something we are all either culprits or victims of. We all know that mother who pushes her daughter to not only pursue, but also excel in, junior dance classes even when she would rather be outside baking mud pies under the sun with the other neighborhood children. And we have all heard about that boy who's putting in extra hours at the football field after practice, not for himself or his love for the game, but for his father. Parents often encourage, and sometimes even force, their children to pursue activities they find little or no interest in simply because they had not had the opportunities to participate in such affairs themselves. They raise their children as they wish they themselves had been raised. This is known as living vicariously. .
             Jing-mei Woo of "The Joy Luck Club" is a character that has obviously fallen victim to living a vicarious life set by her mother, Suyuan. Suyuan is focused on having her daughter become the next "child prodigy". At the tender age of nine, Jing-mei is forced to watch and reenact Shirley Temple films in an effort to become the next "Miss Temple". After her failure at this, Jing-mei and her mother spend numerous nights after dinner researching children and their amazing abilities, ranging from a three-year-old boy who can recite the capitals of every state to the nine-year-old Chinese girl who can pound out music on the piano like no other.