“I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” (Robert A. Heinlein) In Two Kinds, Amy Tan, it begins with a clear opening to one mother’s perception of the American Dream. Losing her family in China, she anticipates to recapture part of that disaster through her daughter “Ni Kan”. Nonetheless, the juvenile Jing –Mei copies her mom’s fantasy and in due time rebels against them. Jing-Mei's craving to be a normal Chinese-American girl angles into an examination for her own character and a struggle between her and her mother which will evaluate the family’s strength. In the beginning, Jing –Mei is just as cheerful as [her] mother, “about the idea of becoming a prodigy”. (222) She envisions herself in diverse roles and considered that once she has “become perfect” (223) her family will accept her. First, Mrs. Woo tries to copy her daughter into a popular actress, but that declines. Then she takes Jing-Mei through normal literary tests. Jing-Mei points out "The tests are harder –multiplying numbers in my head without …show more content…
For Jing -Mei, it is the unwanted burdens her mother commands upon. She disputes, “Why don’t you like me the way I am? I’m not a genius! I can’t play the piano”. (225) The piano implies different things for the two of them. For Jing-Mei, it indicates the unwanted weight of her mother inflicts upon her, the stress to covert to someone she is not. For her mother, it implies the anticipation in the child, the hope that she will become a spectacle child, the hopefulness that coming to America gave her. "America was where all my mother's hopes lay.''(222) This proclamation only restates this free hope America and the piano gave
In the beginning, Jing-mei, is “just as excited as my mother,”(469). Jing-mei was eagerly hoping to make her mother proud. However, her mother’s obsession with becoming a prodigy discouraged Jing-mei. The daily test began to aggravated Jing-mei because they made her feel less sma...
“Check coming today?” The Life Insurance check that Mama will soon be receiving is the source of all the dreams in the Younger family. A major argument that Lorraine Hansberry makes in her play A Raisin in the Sun is the importance of dreams. Dreams are what each member of the Younger family is driven by. Mama wants to have her own home in a nice part of town; she does not want her children growing up in a place with rats. Walter wants to have a successful business so he can surpass the poverty that has plagued his family. And Beneatha wants to get a good education, become a doctor, and marry a nice man. Dreams are especially important to the Younger family as they come from a poverty laden family and desire to live the “American Dream.” Every member of the Younger family has a dream but each one is different with a different view on what the true “American Dream” really is.
The two short stories, “The Princess of Nebraska” and “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers” by Yiyun Li, depict the lives of two people under Chinese communist control, trapped by the social restraints of their society in search of individual salvation. In “Princess of Nebraska”, a young girl (Sasha) struggles to find internal purpose and satisfaction within her life, feeling that the restraints of communist control keep her from achieving the sense of self she desires. She believes the United States is the solution to gaining her individual freedom and fantasizes the recreation of her identity and life. Similarly, “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers” revolves around the same theme of social freedom vs the discovery of the individual self. Mr.Shi,
The American dream has been visualized and pursued by nearly everyone in this nation. Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun is a play about the Younger family that strived for the American dream. The members of the Younger family shared a dream of a better tomorrow. In order to reach that dream, however, they each took different routes, which typified the routes taken by different black Americans.
There are some well-known examples of everyday people, such as Oprah Winfrey, who became wealthy and successful through hard work, giving credence to the idea that in America everyone has the opportunity to become anything they want to be by putting forth an honest effort. Although most people will find living an American Dream of riches to be out of reach, everyone has a dream of succeeding, and that is what unites us and makes our nation strong. Our common dream that anything is possible is the Spirit of America.
In the short story, "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, a Chinese mother and daughter are at odds with each other. The mother pushes her daughter to become a prodigy, while the daughter (like most children with immigrant parents) seeks to find herself in a world that demands her Americanization. This is the theme of the story, conflicting values. In a society that values individuality, the daughter sought to be an individual, while her mother demanded she do what was suggested. This is a conflict within itself. The daughter must deal with an internal and external conflict. Internally, she struggles to find herself. Externally, she struggles with the burden of failing to meet her mother’s expectations. Being a first-generation Asian American, I have faced the same issues that the daughter has been through in the story.
Jing-Mei’s story really starts before she was born because Jing-Mei’s mother came to America after she lost her parents, her first husband, and her two twin baby girls. Her mother set really high exceptions for Jing-Mei before she was ever born because she mother wanted a prodigy child. Jing-Mei starts at a young age to defy her mother on the quizzes her mother gave her because she does not want to be a prodigy child. Jing-Mei would daydream and not answer the questions right if she even knew them at all. For example her mother asks Jing-Mei “what is the capital of Finland?” Jing-Mei said “Nairobi” because she did not know any foreign cities. The only capital city she knows was the capital of California and that is because it was the name of the street Jing-Mei lived on (Page 227).
For many of us growing up, our mothers have been a part of who we are. They have been there when our world was falling apart, when we fell ill to the flu, and most importantly, the one to love us when we needed it the most. In “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, it begins with a brief introduction to one mother’s interpretation of the American Dream. Losing her family in China, she now hopes to recapture part of her loss through her daughter. However, the young girl, Ni Kan, mimics her mother’s dreams and ultimately rebels against them.
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).
The struggle of self identity as she realized that all this while, her mother was right. Once you are born Chinese, you cannot help but feel and think Chinese. Amy Tan’s “A Pair of Tickets” presents an incredibly interesting perspective of a woman named Jing mei who is traveling through her native country of china, embarks on this journey of self-discovery to find her true chinese roots. The opening scene of "A Pair of Tickets" is an appropriate setting for Jing mei remark of becoming Chinese, because the introduction grabs the audience attention. We are first starting out in the story as reading Jing mei turning from American to Chinese in an instant second of the moving of a train from one city to the next. The narrator
Richard Brown is the grown up ‘Ritchie” of depressed housewife and mother, Laura Brown. Laura Brown, while not directly being diagnosed with any medical conditions, she shows symptoms of chronic depression. Out of the three women in the film, Laura’s condition is the most ambiguous. Regardless of living the ideal American Dream life, Laura is profoundly unhappy which leaves her melancholic and suicidal. She has everything needed to be content: a loving war hero husband, a doting son, the perfect family house, and another child on the way, but Laura was festering in her own environment. After the failure of her attempted suicide, Laura decided to leave her family once her second child was born: “It was death. I chose life.” (The Hours). Laura
The term “The American Dream” sounds appealing but it is really not what others make it seem to be. The meaning of the American Dream is the idea that every single US citizen should have the same equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. What is the true definition of hard work? Is hard work the same amount of effort for different type of people? For some people, the journey to success will be smooth, but for others it will be more difficult. It will be difficult for others because of for an example, the color of someone 's skin. Is the Dream harder to achieve from a burden we cannot change like skin color? In the book Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
In Amy Tan 's Two Kinds, Jing-mei and her mother show how through generations a relationship of understanding can be lost when traditions, dreams, and pride do not take into account individuality. By applying the concepts of Virginia Woolf, Elaine Showalter, and the three stages of feminism, one can analyze the discourse Tan uses in the story and its connection to basic feminist principles.
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.
...ith Jing Mei and her mother, it is compounded by the fact that there are dual nationalities involved as well. Not only did the mother’s good intentions bring about failure and disappointment from Jing Mei, but rooted in her mother’s culture was the belief that children are to be obedient and give respect to their elders. "Only two kinds of daughters.....those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!" (Tan1) is the comment made by her mother when Jing Mei refuses to continue with piano lessons. In the end, this story shows that not only is the mother-daughter relationship intricately complex but is made even more so with cultural and generational differences added to the mix.