Jing-Mei Two Kinds

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Nobody knows the secret element which causes a prodigy’s accelerated ability. However, Jing-Mei’s mother would give anything to her daughter in exchange for her daughter to have this trait, so she develops a sequence of schemes to train Jing-Mei as a genius. “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan reveals Jing-Mei’s struggle to accept or deny her mother’s desires. Moreover, this story explores the tense relationship between a mother with impracticable hopes and her daughter “America was where all my mother’s hopes lay. She had come here in 1949” (95). This declaration exposes where the story is taking place, i.e., America. It goes on to say that, “At first my mother thought I could be a Chinese Shirley Temple” (95). This is a sign of the time in which the story takes …show more content…

Jing-Mei’s disturbed bond with her mommy is ironic. “Two Kinds” bleeds irony. An instance of this irony is the voice irony after Jing-Mei’s awful piano recitation when her father exclaims, “‘That was somethin’ else,’ said my father, and I wondered if he was referring to me in a humorous way, or whether he even remembered what I had done” (101). Her father’s observation seems positive despite Jing-Mei’s mediocre performance. Situational irony also shadows when Jing-Mei is offered the family piano. “A few years ago, she offered to give me the piano, for my thirtieth birthday. I had not played in all those years” (103). It’s ironic that she is offered the piano when she hasn’t played for a long time and may no longer be able to. Amy Tan uses sarcasm to make Jing-Mei’s crisis more interesting. In addition to this, depiction makes the story more realistic by adding deepness to Jing-Mei and her complications. One may argue that there aren’t very many characters in “Two Kinds,” but these characters are defined intensely. One way Tan achieves this is by describing Jing-Mei indirectly through her views. We read,

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