False Reality In Two Kinds By Amy Tan

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In the short story “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, the protagonist and narrator Jing-Mei comes to the realization that sometimes, expectations do not match reality, and when that happens, the emotional impact can be devastating. The conflict in the story is that Jing-Mei’s mother wants her to become a child prodigy, but this is not what Jing-Mei wants for herself. Nevertheless, the mother continuously pushes her to become a prodigy: a child actress like Shirley Temple, a trivia genius, and finally, a pianist. Jing-Mei admits that she could have tried at piano lessons and became a good pianist, but her mother had pushed her to the point where she had lost the will to try. Eventually, the narrator does poorly at a piano recital, and mother and daughter

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