The Mother Tongue essays by Amy Tan and Sacha Z. Scoblic's Rock Star, Meet TeeTotaler are both stories of personal experience. The essays are written in an informal style, with sophisticated phrasing and confident writing to elicit sympathy and understanding from readers. Both essays are told through the thoughts and feelings of both authors throughout their stories, as both become open and personal. The following paragraphs will compare and contrast how both essays have similar themes about overcoming obstacles in life, however Sacha's essay is more about the need to adapt to society without changing oneself, while Amy's debunks assumptions that society places on language and what the true purpose of language is. .For starters, Amy Tan was born in California to Chinese immigrant parents (Literature for Life 117). The story focuses on how Amy's mother was always looked down upon because she didn't speak proper English. Amy had to grow up using different English: the one she learned at school and the English she had to use at home, which was a product of her culture. Amy strives to disprove society's way of thinking, just because someone has "broken" English means they have little intelligence or understanding. Even though society deems her mother's tongue to be "broken," her mother understands things that Amy and many others could never begin to understand. Amy claims that her mother reads Forbes reports, listens to Wall Street Week, and converses with her stockbroker, yet friends and others cannot understand what her mother says. This therefore shows that language in society is more than just communication, language is a social tool to measure the value of an individual. Even when Amy's teachers at school tried to direct her towards another... half of the paper... nature for life 842). Ultimately, both essays revealed the difficulties the authors faced in their lives. and overcome obstacles along the way. Amy's essay showed that there is more to a person than their tongue, even if society deems it "broken", while Sacha's essay showed that society should have no say in finding their identity or in defining oneself. Both essays help the reader relate to society's many struggles and how to overcome those obstacles, even though the journey may be long, and in the end the journey will be worth all the effort. Works Cited Scoblic, Sacha Z. “Rock Star, Meet Teetotaler .” Literature for life. Ed. XJ Kennedy, Dana Gioia and Nina Revoyr. New York: Pearson. 2013. 840. Print.Tan, Amy . "Native language." Literature for life. Ed. XJ Kennedy, Dana Gioia and Nina Revoyr. New York: Pearson. 2013. 117. Print.