Analysis Of Two Kinds By Amy Tan

Amy Tan’s short story, “Two Kinds” is about the importance of a mother-daughter relationship and how it effects both of their lives. “Two Kinds” is a chapter from Amy Tan’s best selling novel book, The Joy Lucky Club, which is a collection of stories about immigrant Chinese mother’s and their daughters. In this chapter, Tan describes a unique character, Jing- mei, who has to deal with her mother’s constant preassure to be perfect causes her to sabatoge her own future for the sake of being stubborn,
To begin with, Tan warns the reader of the mother’s hopes of the American Dream making the reader be suspicious of results of the dream. She starts with saying, “my mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America… You could buy a house with almost no money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous” (Tan). The first paragraph takes us to the beginning of her mother’s journey of attempting to making Tan extraordinary, “At first my mother thought I could be a Chinese Shirley Temple. We 'd watch Shirley 's old movies on TV as though they were training film”. Jing-mei admits she liked the “prodigies” that her mother put her through because she thought she was always close to being the “perfect daughter” to her demanding parents. She tried reading difficult books and memorizing parts of the bible to impress

The constant reminder that she wasn’t good enough led her to her outbursts that included, “why don’t you like me the way I am?...I am not a genius” which her mother responded with a slap. Although her mother admits she doesn’t want her to be genious, rather she just wantrs her to trr. However, Jing-Mei also saw this as a way of her mom trying to change her because her mother doesn’t like her enough. Similar to other immigrant parents, the mother believes with hard work her daughter wil succeed and have