Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds.” essay
The meaning of the story two kinds by amy tan
Amy tan "two kinds" essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds.” essay
"Two Kinds" is truly an amazing work; it captivates readers with by telling a story of a young girl trying to find herself. Amy Tan does a phenomenal job, not only by portraying a very real mother-daughter relationship, but at showing how much a young girl can change. Jing-Mei evolves throughout the story in a way that many people can relate to; crushed hopes, obeying your parents even if it means doing something you don't want to do, and finally standing up for what you believe in.
Since "You could be anything you wanted to be in America" (Tan 348) Jing-Meis' mother thought that meant that you had to be a prodigy. While that makes "Everything [sound] too simple and too easily achieved; [Jing-Mei] does not paint a picture of her mother as ignorant or silly" (Brent). In fact, in the beginning, Jing-Mei and her mother are both trying to "Pick the right kind of prodigy" (Tan 349). "In the beginning, [she] was just as excited as [her] mother,"(Tan 349) she wanted to be a prodigy, she wanted to "become perfect
[she wanted her] mother and father to adore [her]"(Tan 349). As she strived to achieve perfection she and her mother would try many different things to try and find the "right kind of prodigy" (Tan 349).
"Every night after dinner, [Jing-Mei and her mother] would sit at the Formica kitchen table. [Her mother] would present new tests, taking her examples from stories of amazing children she had read in Ripley's Believe It or Not, or Good Housekeeping, Reader's Digest, and a dozen other magazines
[Her mother] would look through them all, searching for stories about remarkable children" (Tan 350)
Over time "The tests got hardermultiplying numbers in [her] head, finding the queen of hearts in a deck of cards, trying to ...
... middle of paper ...
... mother never talked about the "disaster at the recital or [her] terrible accusations afterward at the piano bench" (Tan 356), she was surprised when her mother "offered to give [her] the piano, for her thirtieth birthday" (Tan 357). She doesn't accept it at first, but later "[Has] the piano reconditioned, for purely sentimental reasons" (Tan 357).
When her mother dies, Jing-Mei really shows how much of a dynamic character she is. She realizes that, just like the songs in the piano book, her mother and she "were they were two halves of the same song" (Tan 357).
Works Cited
Bernheimer, Kate. "Two Kinds." Short Stories for Students, volume 9:287-302
Brent, Liz. "Two Kinds." Short Stories for Students, volume 9: 287-302
Tan, Amy. "Two Kinds." Literature: A Portable Anthology. Ed. Janet E. Gardner, et. Al. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin's, 2004. 348-357.
Our mothers have played very valuable roles in making us who we are and what we have become of ourselves. They have been the shoulder we can lean on when there is no one else to turn to. They have been the ones we can count on when there is no one else. They have been the ones who love 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, which causes Jing-mei to struggle with who she wants to be.
Traditions, heritage and culture are three of the most important aspects of Chinese culture. Passed down from mother to daughter, these traditions are expected to carry on for years to come. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, daughters Waverly, Lena, Rose and June thoughts about their culture are congested by Americanization while on their quests towards self-actualization. Each daughter struggles to find balance between Chinese heritage and American values through marriage and professional careers.
No matter what actions or words a mother chooses, to a child his or her mother is on the highest pedestal. A mother is very important to a child because of the nourishing and love the child receives from his or her mother but not every child experiences the mother’s love or even having a mother. Bragg’s mother was something out of the ordinary because of all that she did for her children growing up, but no one is perfect in this world. Bragg’s mother’s flaw was always taking back her drunken husband and thinking that he could have changed since the last time he...
Jing-mei 's mother wants Jing-mei to be a prodigy and get popular. Thus, the mother rents a piano for Jing-mei to help her achieve this. Many years later, Jing-mei finds the piano in a broken state, so she decides to have it repaired. She starts playing the song she used to play, “Pleading Child.” But to the right of “Pleading Child,” she finds a second song named “Perfectly Contented.” She starts to play both songs, “And after I [Jing-mei] had played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.” (6) Jing-mei’s mother tells Jing-mei that there are two kinds of people: the respectful kind and the disrespectful kind. At that time, Jing-mei also finds out that there are two kinds of people inside her. She could choose to be the kind where the person is a prodigy and respectful, or be the kind that is ugly in the eyes of people. When she plays “Pleading Child” and “Perfectly Contented,” Jing-mei realizes that her identity had changed completely because of her laziness and beliefs. Jing-mei learns that there are two kinds of people in the world, and she should choose the right
Tan, Amy, and Samuel Cohen. "Two Kinds." Literature: The Human Experience. By Richard Abcarian and Marvin Klotz. 11th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013, 2010, 2006, 2002. 386-94.
"My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America" (491). This ideology inspired Jing-mei’s mother to work hard to create a better life for herself and her family in a new country. The search of the American dream exerts a powerful influence on new arrivals in the United States. However, realizing that they may not achieve the dream of material success and social acceptance, parents tend to transfer that burden to their children. It is a burden where dreams usually fall short of expectations.
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 Jing-mei’s childhood, she never truly appreciated how much her mother, Suyuan, had done for her. Purchasing an expensive piano and working away to get Jing-mei piano lessons are a couple of the many things her mother has done for her. When Jing-mei became an adult she finally understood how considerate her mother is. Once her mother had passed she grew an appreciation to the physical objects her mother had given her “...sentimental attachment to the piano, and one day she plays Schumann’s piano pieces “Pleading Child” and “Perfectly Contented” and discovers that they are “two halves of the same song”” (Wang). Due to the difficulty of communication, the message of the two songs Suyuan wished to depict was not evident to Jing-mei at the time. Similarly, Jing-mei only valued her mother’s necklace after she passed. Once Jing-mei accepted her mother’s necklace she began to wear it in hopes to absorb and understand Suyuan, “June accepts this as a deep expression of her mother’s love, despite the fact the intricate carvings are opaque to her, carrying secrets she supposes she will never understand” (Gerhardt). If it wasn’t for the troubled relationship they share, then the mother and daughter could have conversed on a deeper
...r mothers death to meet her half sisters. While in China Jing-mei finds out that she did appreciate her mother although she was worried that she didn't and knew nothing about her. She also realizes that she did not have to prove her Chinese identity to her two half sisters, that she belongs to their family automatically because of Suyuan. After her trip to China she "found" her mother and stops feeling doubt of her and Suyuan's relationship with each other.
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.
Two days after the talent show, her mother comes in and tells Jing-Mei that it is time for her piano lessons. Jing-Mei is stubborn and pretends she does not hear her mother, but her mother continues to bother her and the argument escalates to the point where Jing-Mei says, “Then I wish I’d never been born... I wish I were dead,” and shocks her mother(1238). As a result of this, her mother stops bothering her and stops her ambitions. Although Jing-Mei should be happy with this, she continues to live with her mother’s disappointment and continues to fail her as she becomes an adult.
...rs that she never wanted to do. It is here that the reader notices that the forceful motivation that her mother performed was only a desperate attempt to save Tan from committing the same mistakes that her mother probably did before she came to America. Though, Tan never realizes this until the very end of the story when she is all grown up and her mother buys her a piano. The passing of this piano is a symbolic point in the book when Tan realizes that her mother only tried to help her all of these years. And closure is placed upon the tumultuous relationship between Tan and her mother while she plays the song “Perfectly Contented.”
The story "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan is about a mother and daughter who have strong conflicting ideas about what it means to have a sense of self. This may be partly due to the mother growing up in China, which is a very different culture than the American culture where endless opportunities are available to anyone who wants to pursue them. Jing-mei's mother wants her daughter to be the best, a prodigy of sorts, and to have the kind of life, full of hopes and dreams that she did not have. In the beginning of the story Jing-mei liked the idea of becoming a prodigy however, the prodigy in her became impatient. "If you don't hurry up and get me out of here, I'm disappearing for good." It warned. "And then you'll always be nothing" (500). After disappointing her mother several times Jing-mei started to detest the idea of becoming a prodigy. The idea Jing-mei's mother had for her to become a prodigy was too much pressure for a small child and was something that Jing-mei was clearly not ready to be. As a result the pressure that her mother laid upon her only made Jing-mei rebel against her mother and she resisted in giving her best. Jing-mei did this because she only wanted her mother's love and acceptance for who she was not only what she could become. Furthermore, Jing-mei's point of view of being the kind of person that one can be proud of was very different from her mother's point of view.
Jing-Mei is asked to replace her mother at the Joy Luck Club and fulfill her mother’s ‘long-cherished wish’. The problem is that Jing-mei feels like she never really knew her own mother. This simple premise allows the book to cast a much wider net, as it raises the question of how well daughters know their mothers. The other three members
In her short story "Two Kinds," Amy Tan utilizes the daughter's point of view to share a mother's attempts to control her daughter's hopes and dreams, providing a further understanding of how their relationship sours. The daughter has grown into a young woman and is telling the story of her coming of age in a family that had emigrated from China. In particular, she tells that her mother's attempted parental guidance was dominated by foolish hopes and dreams. This double perspective allows both the naivety of a young girl trying to identify herself and the hindsight and judgment of a mature woman.