The Theme of Wing’s Chips

Wings Chips is a story about a father and daughter who are English living in a predominately French town in Canada. If you study and read this story enough you can learn many life lessons from it. The main theme of the story is that even though many people have different beliefs and come from different cultures they wish to have the respect of others, and be accepted by others. The characters in this story have very strong beliefs. At the end of the story the different cultures in the small town learn to accept and respect each other.

The narrators father lives in this town, and his job is a painter, although he is not that successful of a painter financially, he has great artistic skills and a creative mind. He also has very strong beliefs and this relates directly to his work because he paints things the way he thinks they should be painted. This is shown when he is asked to paint a portrait of a young girl and the mother makes many requests of what should be done but he ignores her and continues to paint it the way he thinks it would look best. And although the narrators father has different beliefs from the mother of how the portrait should be painted he paints it his way.

The narrator tells her tale of the different cultures in the town and how they always didnt agree or respect each other. The different cultures in the small town were French, English and there was a small Chinese family who owned and ran a local store. The narrator and her Father were an English family living in a French community; this would prove to be a very difficult task because of the ongoing feud between the two cultures. The daughter tells the story in such a manner that leads the reader to think that the father was simply there, and that he was there because he wanted to be and it didnt matter that the other people might not have wanted him there. This goes to show of the fathers strong beliefs and independence of prejudice.

Towards the end of the story the Wings which are the Chinese family ask the father to paint a new sign for their store. He accepts this job, and does not charge them. He does an excellent job on the sign and English, French and the Chinese all like the sign. They all stop to look at it and comment on it, both the French and English both agree that he must have been paid a good amount for it, even though he did it for free. The fact that the Chinese went to an English painter to paint the sign means that they accepted and respected him. And when all three cultures praise the sign it shows that they could overcome the cultural differences between them.

The differences between the three different cultures are clearly told by the narrator, and they are obvious to the reader. There is great significance to the sign and what it means to the characters in the story. I think that what the author wants to show his readers is that people want there beliefs and thoughts to be accepted and respected by others.

Sources

UsedGallant, Mavis. Wing’s Chips