Two Kinds Literary Analysis

One of the most familiar issues when it comes to the relationships between children and parents are the lack of understanding and communication. Parents fail to properly relay what it is they want for their kids, and children neglect to listen or explain their emotions to their parents. It’s simpler to continue to fight with each other than to properly take the time to resolve the root causes of the fighting. In the short story, Two Kinds by Amy Tan, the main character Jing-mei’s mother is dead set on her daughter becoming a prodigy, pushing and prodding her into doing things without thinking about what’s going through her daughter’s head. In retaliation to her mother’s action, Jing-mei stops trying or caring about any of her mother's attempts. This ultimately leads to a huge argument between them, Jing-mei expressing something hurtful, and her mother losing hope for her daughter. Tan’s intent is to instruct the reader that without thinking about one another’s views and emotions, a healthy relationship can never be developed. In this story, that lesson is never realized until it is too late.

To begin with, she was cooperative with her mother; she was “just as excited as [her] mother”, and believed she would “become perfect” (pg 1). However, after several failed attempts at finding her talent, she began to lose hope. Jing-mei discovered an “angry, powerful” side of her that she “had never seen before” (pg 2). This was the turning point of her cooperation with her mother. The face she saw did not belong to her; it belonged to the person her mother desired her to be. 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