Often in literature, character relationships change and evolve. “Two Kinds,” written by Amy Tan, is a narrative telling the story of a mother and daughter who endure both internal and external conflicts, impacting the relationship between them. Arguments regarding Jing-Mei’s future fame and fortune affect the emotional bond between them, also changing her overall attitude and personality. While on this journey, both characters evolve dramatically as the resolution approaches. After a careful analysis of the story, the reader understands how Jing-mei’s feelings changed towards her mother, why her feelings changed, and how this change affects the story as a whole. Throughout the story, Jing-mei’s opinions change due to multiple reasons. For …show more content…
As the story progresses, Jing-mei’s mother creates various tasks and tests to find her daughter’s true calling. The tests she presents to her seem nearly impossible, demoralizing Jing-mei. The narrator stresses, “The tests got harder and harder--multiplying numbers in my head, finding the queen of hearts in a deck of cards….One night I had to look at a page from the Bible for three minutes and then report everything I could remember” (Tan 19). In this quote, she names the demanding tests that Jing-mei’s mother put on her daughter’s shoulders. It shows just how determined she is to make her child a prodigy. As the challenges begin to overwhelm her, Jing-mei decides that she will no longer allow her mother to change her. Instead of agreeing on a compromise, the two seem to bicker endlessly. Jing-mei claims, “I had new thoughts, willful thoughts--or, rather thoughts filled with lots of wont’s. I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I’m not” (Tan 19). Here it shows the exact point in which Jing-mei decides she will rebel against her mother and what she believes in. However, their quarrel does not end there. Her mother, although Jing-mei embarrassed herself, still pushes her to learn piano. The narrator comments, “‘Four clock,’ she reminded me, as if it were any other day. I was stunned, as though she were asking me to go through the talent show torture again” (Tan 23). Within this quote it …show more content…
Because of her mother’s harsh, strict ways, an emotional barrier and strong resentment begins to develop between her and her daughter. The narrator expresses, “When my mother told me this, I felt as though I had been sent to hell. I whined, and then kicked my foot a little when I couldn’t stand it anymore. ‘Why don’t you like me the way I am?’ I cried” (Tan 20). The previous quote demonstrates the abandonment Jing-mei feels from her mother simply because she is not the “perfect” or “ideal” child. The final remark Jing-mei strikes her mother with finally terminates their disputes, but not without creating an incurable distance between them. She attacks, “And that’s when I remembered the babies she lost in China, the ones we never talked about. ‘Then I wish I’d never been born!’ I shouted. ‘I wish I were dead! Like them’” (Tan 24). This moment is significant because it is the minute in which Jing-mei finally stands up to her mother to end the constant battle between them. For the duration of the progressing years of her life, she continues to disappoint her mother without remorse for what she has done. Her grudge stays in place until the death of her mother which opens her eyes. Jing-mei finally appreciates everything her mother tried to do for her to have an eventful, fulfilling life. She begins to view her piano as a trophy for the adventures she endured.
“Only two kinds 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 only wanted the best for them and had their best interest at heart. In the beginning, Jing-mei, is “just as excited as my mother,”(469). Jing-mei eagerly hoped to make her mother proud. However, her mother’s obsession with becoming a prodigy discouraged Jing-mei.
Jing-mei Woo has to become a member of the Joy Luck Club in place of her mother, Suyuan Woo, who passed away. Before Suyuan's passing Jing-mei does not know much about her mother, as the story continues to develop Jing-mei realizes how much she did not know about her mother and learns more and more new things about her on her journey of finding her sisters. “Your father is not my first husband. You are not those babies” (26), this quote is from Suyuan Woo and shows Jing- mei that her mother has a lot of secrets that she does not know about. “Over the years, she told me the same story, except for the ending, which grew darker, casting long shadows into her life, and eventually into mine” (21). This quote shows how Jing-mei did not know much
Throughout the story, Jing-mei’s feelings towards her mother changed in important ways. When Jing-mei was a young girl she idolized her mother and looked forward to doing well on each of the tests with which she challenged Jing-mei. The narrator
Also, Jing Mei fears that her mother will not love her for who she is unless she is able to succeed in America. Towards the end of the story the daughter got fed up with the mother because she is tired of doing everything the mother
Jing-Mei gets frustrated because she could not satisfy her mother. After Jing-mei sees her “mother's disappointed face once again”, something inside her begins to die. She begins to rebel and now she sees the “prodigy” in her as the cause of the rebellion. “In the years that followed, I failed her so many times, each time asserting my own will, … for unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be, I could only be me.” Jing- mei expressed her anger by going against her mother's expectations which started from her childhood experiences.
She sees the opportunities that America has to offer, and does not want to see her daughter throw those opportunities away. She wants the best for her daughter, and does not want Jing-Mei to ever let go of something she wants because it is too hard to achieve. "America is where all my mother's hopes lay. . .There were so many ways for ... ...
Jing-mei wants to fit in as most teenagers do so she pushes away from her ethnicity because it is not viewed as normal in the American society she grew up in. Victoria Chen states in her academic journal “The American Dream eventually eludes the immigrant woman beyond her best intentions” (3). This causes Jing-mei to never truly learn about her Chinese heritage. Jing-mei is now thrill six with no real knowledge of what is means to be Chinese. Jing-mei starts out in the story as being on a train with her father, Chang Woo, on the way to visit his aunt in Guangzhou.
Jing-mei’s mother mixes the Chinese and American culture by taking advantage of the opportunities presented in America, that could grant her daughter a lifetime of happiness without a worry, that possible she has suffered or gone through. “America was where all my mother’s hopes lay. She had come here in 1949 after losing everything in China: her mother and father, her family home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls. But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better.”
Compare to childhood and adulthood, Jing-mei has insight about role of mother when she grows up and she has her own definition about the mother. She did not follow the plan that her mother wants at first; however, she becomes to the person that her mother expected but in different
The demanding nature of Jing-mei’s mother was in part because of her Chinese heritage. As a Chinese mother she valued obedience and her role was not to be questioned by her daughter as shown when she tells her “Only one kind of daughter can live in this house.” However, Jing-mei’s being raised in America sets her apart from her mother. The American dream to Jing-mei was her ability to choose who and what she wanted to be, her individuality. In a way, Jing-mei feels as though her mother is trying to channel herself through the success of Jing-mei.
As she continues to fail, she still believes that she cannot be anything she wants to be but herself and is still too scared to ask her mother “why she had hoped for something so large that failure was inevitable. And even worse… Why had she given up hope?”(1239). It is not until her mother dies that Jing-Mei realizes that, essentially, her mother is ambitious for the sake of her being perfectly content with her life. The only thing Jing-Mei’s mother ever wanted her to
This idea lead to her development of defiance towards her mother. She did not want to be changed by her mother, shes was determined to find her identity by herself. All she desired was to make her mother proud, but her mother’s expectations of her was not who Jing-mei utterly
Jing-mei and her mother have conflicting values of how Jing-mei should live her life. She tries to see what becoming a prodigy would be like from her mother's point of view and the perks that it would bring her as she states in the story "In all my imaginings, I was filled with a sense that I would soon become perfect. My mother and f...
Jing-Mei was forced to take piano lessons; this only further upset her as she felt that she was a constant disappointment. Her mother was mad at her on a regular basis because Jing-Mei stood up for herself and explained to her that she didn’t want to be a child prodigy.
...by the wrong person. Only after the death of her mother can she let her guilt override her pride. Only after the death of her mother, when she can act on her own accord and not please her mother, does she truly play the piano. Their conflict has gone unsolved, and the mother has died believing that she was a failure as a parent. Throughout the daughter's childhood, both are trapped in their own selfish illusions. Their personalities clash, and neither is willing to compromise. It is unfortunate that neither can realize the extent to which they have damaged themselves individually and jointly. They are fundamentally the same, but, blinded by tenacity, neither realizes that "they are two halves of the same song."