All Stories take place at a certain time and place, a certain setting. The setting of a story helps us to better understand the characters involved in the story. The setting also gives us insight as to why the characters feel, act, and react as they do. The setting in Amy Tan's "A Pair of Tickets" and Flannery O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge" explores the relationship of place, heritage, and ethnic identity to give us better insight into the feelings and actions of the characters. The more we know of the setting, and of the relationship of the characters to the setting, the more likely we are to understand the characters and the stories themselves.Amy Tan's "A Pair of Tickets," especially, explores the relationship of setting to place, heritage, and ethnic identity. Jing-Mei Woo, the main character, has trouble accepting that she is Chinese, despite her heritage. Jing-Mei Woo believed, at fifteen, that she had no Chinese whatsoever below her skin. If anything, she perceives herself as Caucasian; even her Caucasian friends agreed that she "was as Chinese as they were." Her mother, however, told her differently, "It's in your blood, waiting to be let go." This terrified Jing-Mei, making her believe that it would cause her to suddenly change, "I saw myself transforming like a werewolf." Jing-Mei Woo finally realizes that she has never really known what it means to be Chinese because she was born and has lived in America all her life. After her mother's death, Jing-Mei discovers that she has two twin sisters living in China who have been searching for their mother and that she must go to China to tell them of their mother's death. As she enters China on the train she begins to feel differently about herself, she thinks "My mother was right, I am becoming Chinese." However, once in China she finds that, in spite of the huge change in place and culture, modern China is startlingly similar to the United States. ...
