Question

thesis starters: - in gish jens short story, \the white umbrella,\ the white umbrella symbolizes ______.

Explanation:

In Gish Jen's The White Umbrella, the white umbrella represents the narrator's desire for a perfect, affluent, and "normal" American life that she associates with her piano teacher, Miss Crosman, and the wealth and stability she lacks in her own working-class immigrant family. It also symbolizes her shame about her mother's job and her longing to fit into mainstream American culture, before she later rejects this longing and embraces her own family's reality.

Answer:

the narrator's longing for affluence, social acceptance, and an idealized "perfect" American life, as well as her temporary shame about her immigrant family's working-class status