Transcript Chinatown - Georgia Institute of Technology

“The Third Circle”
by
Frank Norris
Jean Kim
Landon Hall
Max Jakubowich
Kimiya Sarayloo
Frank Norris

Born in Chicago,
moved to San
Francisco at age 14
 Became a reporter for
local newspapers
 Enjoyed the
sleaziness of the city
 His most famous
works, McTeague
and The Octopus
San Francisco’s Chinatown
1870’s- Immigrants
start arriving from
China, settle in one
area
 1882- Chinese
Exclusion Act issued
 Largest group of
immigrants worked
low end jobs

“Chinatown Introduction: a tale of four cities”
1880’s- Height of AntiChinese Hysteria
 1882- Chinese
Exclusion Act issued
 Six Companies
formed

Dangers of Chinatown
“at any rate not until the “town” has been, as it were,
drained off from the city, as one might drain a noisome
swamp”
 “Shady”
reputation among Public
 Violence not uncommon
 Deemed health hazard and eyesore
 Underworld of Chinatown was popular with
tourists

Tea house in San Francisco
Frank NORRIS
“The Third Circle”

A story about third circle of Chinatown-part that no one ever hears
of.

“Dreadful life that wallows down there in the lowest ooze of the
place.”
San Francisco’s old Chinatown
(Gangs of San Francisco)

A Chinaman known as “Little Pete,” was interested in
slave dens, gambling places and lottery houses. He
formed tongs, commonly known as member of a
Chinese-American secret society of paid assassins and
blackmailers who guaranteed him absolute protection to
protect his interests.

Different tongs started fighting among themselves over
slave girls and gambling games. These wars sometimes
lasted for several months.

Hillegas and Miss Ten Eyck



Engaged to be married.
Visiting Chinatown
Harriett Ten Eyck


Most beautiful girl that Hillegas ever remembered to have seen.
“Fresh, vigorous, healthful prettiness only seen in certain types of
unmixed American stock.”
“The guides never brought us here.”




See Yup restaurant on
Waverly Place
“See Yup” means
laboring men.
Strangers in
Chinatown
In unsafe part of the
Chinatown.

While waiting for their tea to be served, decided to have their fortune
told.



“No fortune-tattoo.”
Instead, Miss Ten Eyck gets a butterfly tattoo on her finger.
Hillegas left to get the Chinaman.

After he returned, Miss Ten Eyck was GONE. He never saw her again.
The Missing Woman…

Manning, narrator’s friend, is well aware of secretive affairs in
Chinatown.


Manning and the narrator went to “Ah Yee’s tan room” to get
information about Miss Ten Eyck.




Narrator was told that one of Mr. Hillegas’s Chinese detectives was
murdered by a hired assassin from Peking.
Sadie, one of Ah Yee’s slaves.
Dreadful-looking woman, wrinkled, black teethed from nicotine
“Ten Eyck! Ten Eyck! No, I don’t remember anybody named that.”
Saw a butterfly tattooed on Sadie’s finger.
Outside Source:
 http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=h
ttp://www.sfmuseum.net/photos15/chinsce
ne1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.sfmuseum.o
rg/hist9/cook.html&h=278&w=362&sz=13
&tbnid=i8QUpeYJvaTHzM:&tbnh=89&tbn
w=117&hl=en&start=40&prev=/images%3
Fq%3Dsan%2Bfrancisco%2Bchinatown%
26start%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3
Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN
Dialect
Norris
uses dialect very similarly
to the way Mark Twain does in
Pudd’nhead Wilson.
His use of dialect separates the
natives of Chinatown from it’s
visitors just as Twain’s use of
dialect separated the black and
white races in Pudd’nhead Wilson.
For Example…
 The
fortune teller that tattoos Ten Eyck’s
finger resides in Chinatown. He’s part
Chinaman and part Kanaka.
 Norris gives him a distinct dialect to
separate him from Ten Eyck and Tom who
were just visiting Chinatown.
Some example’s of the fortune
teller’s distinct dialect:
 “Mother
Kanaka lady—washum clothes for
sailor peoples down Kaui way…”
 “Urn. All same tattoo—three, four, seven,
plenty lil birds on layd’s arm. Hey? You
want tattoo?”
Ten Eyck (Sadie’s) dialect changes
throughout the course of the story
In the beginning, Ten Eyck’s dialect was just like
the other native English speakers that weren’t
natives of Chinatown.
 Example: “Tattoo my arm? What an idea! But
wouldn’t it be funny, Tom?”
 But at the end of the story her dialect becomes
more similar to the fortune tellers.
 Example: “Ah Yee’s pretty good to us—plenty to
eat, plenty to smoke, and as much yen shee as
we can stand.”

Ten Eyck’s Dialect (Cont.)
 Eventhough
Ten Eyck was “white” and not
originally from Chinatown she adapted into
their way of speaking.
 This is similar to the way the real Tom
adapted to speaking the black’s dialect
eventhough he was really white.
Significance of the Tattooed
Butterfly
 The
Butterfly was Ten Eyck’s “fingerprint,”
it identified her, without it the reader would
have never been able to figure out that Ten
Eyck and Sadie were the same person at
the end of the story.
 This is similar to how fingerprints identified
the true identities of Tom and Chambers in
Pudd’nhead Wilson.
Misconception can deceive the
eyes….
“I was sure they were Chinese women at first,
until my eyes got accustomed to the darkness of
the place. They were dressed in Chinese
fashion, but I noted soon that their hair was
brown and the bridge of each one’s nose was
high”
 Because of the misconception that Chinese
women are the ones that work in the factory’s
rolling pills the narrator thinks that Sadie is
Chinese at first even-though she is white

Misconceptions in society (Cont.)
“She was a dreadful looking beast of a woman,
wrinkled like a shriveled apple, her teeth quite
black from nicotine, her hands bony and
prehensile, like a hawk’s claws but a white
woman beyond all doubt.”
Sadie acted Chinese eventhough she was really
white because she had been living in that
environment for so long.
This is similar to the way the real Tom acted black
eventhough he was really white because he was
raised as Chambers in Pudd’nhead Wilson.
DISCUSSION
Is “The Third Circle” intentionally prejudice against
Chinatown and its inhabitants?
Discussion
Is a person defined by nature or nurture?
Discussion

Is “Sadie” happy with her situation in the end of
the story?
Discussion

What effect does the reputation of a district
have on its condition?
Discussion
In today’s society, does the stereotyping of
foreigners still exist?