Two Kinds By Amy Tan Analysis

In the article,” Why Chinese Mothers are Superior," author Amy Chua describes how parenting is approached in Chinese culture as compared to "Western parents." She compares Western and Chinese parents on how they approach their children’s' upbringings. She gives examples from her experiences raising her own daughters. Chua's daughters were not allowed to attend sleepovers and could not score grades any lower than an "A" in school classes. Chua also forced her kids in learning a piece for the piano. In separate story, author Amy Tan discusses the mother-daughter relationship in Chinese-American culture in "Two Kinds." This story is told from the viewpoint of an American-born Chinese girl named Jing-mei. Her immigrant mother, Mrs. Woo, believes that being in America is freedom and wants her daughter to take advantage of that freedom. Her mother has her try several activities in an attempt to

In the short story Two Kinds by Amy Tan, she writes about a child named Jing-mei and her experiences with her mother pushing her to become a prodigy, all while her mother deals with being a Chinese immigrant that just moved to the United States. The two countries obviously share very different cultures and this plays a part in the story as she pushes Jing-mei to live ‘The American Dream’. Her mother strongly believes that in America you can be whatever you want to be. This, to some, may not be true, however this idea is strongly pushed in the Chinese culture. This is shown when Jing-mei fails to do any prodigious task that her mother puts in front of her which leads to her mother being ultimately disappointed in Jing-mei. Her failures ends up causing a huge argument between Jing-mei and her mother. The argument could be called the climax of the story. This confrontation wouldn’t have happened if Jing-mei’s mother didn’t have the huge idea that The American Dream is a legitimate thing, and Jing-mei’s mother wouldn’t have that perception of America if the Chinese culture didn’t present the United States as such a place. Based on Chinese culture and perspectives, there are numerous fallacies concerning the American Dream, and these are displayed in Amy Tan’s short story “Two Kinds”.

The definition of an underachiever as stated by Webster is “one (such as a student) that fails to attain a predicted level of achievement or does not do as well as expected.” In the short story “Two Kinds” written by Amy Tan, Ni’Kan is the queen of underachievers. She determines at a young age to become defiant to her mom. After experiencing disappointment from letting her mom down, Ni’Kan determined that she would not become a child prodigy and intentionally failed throughout her life.

This story is about a mother and daughter who came to America to find a better life. They moved from china. In the story the mother wants to turn her daughter into a “prodigy” so she can be famous. The mother works as a housekeeper, and she “Believes you could be anything you wanted to be in America” (Tan 377). In this quote one can see that the mother believed, but just not for her; instead, she believed that her daughter will have the American life. After work she would collect old magazines from her job and look through them to find new talents for Jin-Mei. The mother was so eager to find at least one thing was good at but she came up short. By doing that Jin-Mei became very

Our mothers have played very valuable roles in making us who a we are and what we have become of ourselves. They have been the shoulder we can lean on when there was no one else to turn to. They have been the ones we can count on when there was no one else. They have been the ones who love of us for who we are and forgive us when no one else wouldn’t. In Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds,” the character Jing-mei experiences being raised by a mother who has overwhelming expectations for her daughter, causes Jing-mei to struggle with who she wants to be. “Only two kind of daughters,” “Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!”(476). When a mother pushes her daughter to hard the daughter rebels, but realizes in the end that their mothers

The title of this short story “Two Kinds” is describes the theme of this story. The mother had stated that there are only two types of daughters. “Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind.” (pg 412) Jing Mei did not understand the truth or meaning behind that declaration until after her mothers death. Jing Mei realized that her mother only meant that she could be an obedient child by listening to her mother while at the same time follow her own heart and want her own prodigy in life. The last paragraph in this story also indicates the theme of two halves being equal to one. The two songs “perfectly contented” and “pleading child” was actually two halves of one song. Despite Jing Mei and her mother’s differences

”(Tan-page 193) Then she watches the shows and sees the Chinese girl is playing piano. She thinks Jing Mei can become famous with her hide talent, so she begins to force Jing Mei to learn piano “Two or three months went by without any mention of my being a prodigy. And then one day my mother was watching the Ed Sullivan Show on TV… a little Chinese girl, about nine years old, with a Peter Pan haircut… Our family had no piano and we couldn't afford to buy one, let alone reams of sheet music and piano lessons…"Just

In the story, Two-Kinds, by Amy Tan is about the life of the narrator when she was only twelve years old. She has gone through so many conflicts in her life. The narrator learns about what her mother wanted her to do by the age of thirty. After eighteen years, the narrator has overcome the duality in her life. She overcame her duality when she decided to write her own book based on her life. A character that had many things to think about to become a writer for she can write her story Two Kinds.

In the short story, "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, a Chinese mother and daughter are at odds with each other. The mother pushes her daughter to become a prodigy, while the daughter (like most children with immigrant parents) seeks to find herself in a world that demands her Americanization. This is the theme of the story, conflicting values. In a society that values individuality, the daughter sought to be an individual, while her mother demanded she do what was suggested. This is a conflict within itself. The daughter must deal with an internal and external conflict. Internally, she struggles to find herself. Externally, she struggles with the burden of failing to meet her mother’s expectations. Being a first-generation Asian American,

Amy Tan’s short story “Two Kinds” describes a Chinese immigrant family who hope of finding success and an overall betterment of life in America. After losing everything in China, Jing-mei’s mother, Mrs. Woo, tries as a minority house maid in the 1960s to provide all the opportunities she can for her last daughter. This short story revolves around the interactions between the Jing-mei, who desires a ordinary life, and Mrs. Woo, who seeks only the best from her daughter. The values of these two characters are in constant conflict of which creates a lasting segregation between parent and child. Through Mrs. Woo’s death, Jing-mei questions her childhood upbringing and her mother’s true intentions that were masked by pure immigrant ambition.

page three her mother slapped her and accused her of being ungrateful. In addition as her piano

In the short story “Two Kinds”, Amy Tan uses the narrator’s point of view to share a mother's attempt to control her daughter's dreams and ambitions. Tan`s short story is an example of how differing personalities cause struggles between a parent and child. Children often fall victim to a parent trying too hard or expectations being too high, and in the case of "Two Kinds," we see Jing Mei’s mother trying to live her life through that of Jing Mei. The outcome of her mother’s actions soon leads the narrator into feeling tension within herself, and between herself and her mother.

Amy Tan’s fictional work, “Two Kinds” is centered around a Chinese-American girl named Jing-mei and her mother. With these two strong minded characters, Tan intertwined the central conflict with the theme: once you realize who are as a person, you need to find inner peace when others question or try to change who you know you are. To start, the mother had very high standards that she held her daughter up to, and as a result Jing-mei was resistant to her mother’s wishes. Playing piano at a performance that was not her best, Jing-mei decided that she would give up, on trying to the prodigy her mother envisioned for her to be. She just wanted her mother to love her for who she was, and the mother was doing what she thought was best for her

In the story, Two Kinds, by Amy Tan, the main theme is the idea of the American Dream. The main character, Jing-mei, and her mother, Mrs. Woo, constantly have tension between themselves. “Why don’t you like me the way I am? I’m not a genius,” (Tan, 1989, 2). Mrs. Woo wants her daughter to be the best she can be, however, Jing-mei feels her mother wants to have a daughter whom is a genius.

In the story Two Kinds by Amy Tan it tells the tale of conflict between a mother Suyuan and her daughter Jing-mei over piano lessons. Two Kinds deals with a clash between a mother’s belief of hard work and persistance and a daughter's belief that being a prodigy is unachievable. Amy Tan shows generational differences among immigrant families negotiating the mythology of the American Dream.