Amy Tan's Short Story 'Two Kinds'

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Two Kinds Essay Every mother would never let their child fail or lose hope for their daughter, they are the best supporters to have when faced with difficulties. In the short story “Two Kinds” written by Amy Tan depicts the relationship between a Chinese mother, Suyuan Woo who has emigrated to United States for a new life, and her daughter, Jing-mei who is an American girl. Since the mother has already gone through a destructure in life, by losing her husband and her twin baby girls in China, she has desperation and strong mind to make sure that her daughter do her best at succeeding. Her mother views that America is a land of opportunity and expects her to be the best at everything as a prodigy. While Suyuan constantly pushes her daughter …show more content…

The last thing that Suyuan makes her daughter try is to become a pianist like the little Chinese girl on the Ed Sullivan Show. So she schedules piano classes for her daughter without her consent, when she hears this news, she is very upset and feels as though she has been sent to hell. She already undergoes many failures, and due to the continued failure she realizes that she is not a genius. However Jing-mei begins to learn playing the piano with Mr.Chong and participates in the contest of piano. As usual, Jing-mei fails again at the contest and leaves with nothing but embarrassment and disappointment. After she leaves the contest, she discovers her limitations and starts to go through the external conflict with her mother, she states, “I’m not going to play anymore, Why should I? I’m not a genius.”(Tan). Jing-mei does not want to become what her mother wants her to become, but her mother demands forcibly just like she would always be and tells her the real meaning of “two kinds” by saying, “those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter!”(Tan). The mother does not care what Jing-mei says, she only has an expectations of her daughter to always obey her. The relationship between her and her mother is declining and gets even worse when Jing-mei spits out the most hurtful statement, she yells, “Then I wish I'd never been born! I wish I were dead! Like them” (Tan). This made her mother discover how much she hated to follow as her mother says, and also broke mother’s feelings. This happens because they are misunderstanding each other’s feelings and

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