Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds” is an autobiographical look into her childhood that shows the conflict between Tan and her mother, the difference between old and new cultures, the past and the present, and parents’ expectations vs. reality. Couples of opposing elements comprise the basis of the entire story; to another extent even the title itself, “Two Kinds,” shows the friction that Tan creates. The strongest argument that Tan suggest is that this may not only be a look into her own life, rather it may be
Amy Tan Amy Tan was born in 1952, in Oakland, California to Chinese immigrants John and Daisy Tan. Her family eventually settled in Santa Clara. When Tan was in her early teens, her father and one of her brothers died of brain tumors within months of each other. During this period Tan learned that her mother had been married before, to an abusive husband in China. After divorcing him, her mother fled China during the Communist takeover, leaving three daughters behind who she would not see
“Two Kinds” by Amy Tan is about an immigrant family from China. The two main characters consist of a chinese mother named, Suyuan, and her American-born daughter, Jing Mei. For Suyuan, moving to America meant opportunities. She pushes her daughter, Jing Mei, into trying new activities in hopes of turning her into a child prodigy. Jing Mei becomes stubborn and resentful. Her attitude towards her mother becomes a protective wall against her struggle to change her. Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds”, depicts the
One’s ability to craft their own identity often starts out with determining their inner set of ideologies and values. New York Times bestselling author, Amy Tan, is one of many great examples who was able to mirror her own values into her bestselling novel, The Kitchen God’s Wife. Known for incorporating mother-daughter relationships into her stories, Tan uses her novel to allow readers an inside look into her personal set of beliefs and values. The story follows a Chinese immigrant living in America
How Immigrants Change Your Writing For this assignment, I read Amy Tan’s short story works such as, “Fish Cheeks,” “Two Minutes about Ghosts,” “Two Kinds,” “Rules of the Game,” and “Mother Tongue.” Amy Tan has a very specific writing style, which gives away her personality, not just as a writer, but as a whole. Tan uses the element of short, effectual sentences to portray her immigrant-raised childhood and the impact of having what she calls “limited English” surround her for her entire adolescence
Amy Tan, an accomplished Chinese-American author, is well-known for her incorporation of her Chinese heritage into her works of literature. Amy Ruth Tan was born to John and Daisy Tan on February 19, 2952 (“Amy Tan Biography”). Although Amy Tan’s parents were both born in China, she was American born. Daisy Tan was born to a wealthy family in Shanghai, China. John Tan, on the other hand, was an electrical engineer and Baptist minister. Amy Tan’s parents met in a dangerous decade of the 1940’s in
Amy Tan is a writer who is a first generation american and whose parents are chinese immigrants, she was born on February 19, 1952 in Oakland, California to Daisy and John Tan, who was an electrical engineer and baptist minister. Because she was born and raised in the US, she spoke better english than her parents, especially her mother. Her father and brother Peter died with five months of each other. Language played an extremely huge part of her life and it inspired her writing, her mother was also
Amy Tan makes her readers think about the meaning behind her story “Two Kinds”. She tells the story from her own point of view to state her experiences and how she is feeling all throughout the story. She does not state what is right or wrong based strict on her opinion. She does not give instruction about solving a family crisis, instead, she writes her story as a sort of diary expressing how she felt about her childhood events. Readers are offered an accounting of those events, as well as insight
In “Two Kinds,” Amy Tan explores a theme of independence. Jing-me is an impressionable nine year old girl living in an apartment with her parents. She struggles with the high expectations of her mother, to become a prodigy. The conflict results in a rebellious independence. Tan develops Jing-me’s character as willful, defiant, and insecure. To begin, Tan demonstrates that Jing-me’s willfulness stands in the way of her success. For example, after failing many of her mothers prodigy tests, she begins
Amy Tan “A Pair of Tickets” Amy Tan’s “A Pair of Tickets” follows a thirty-six year old woman named June May who has found herself lost from her own heritage and with loads of questions that were left without answers about her ancestry. According to “Explanation of Amy Tan’s A Pair of Tickets by Lit Finder Contemporary Collection” “this novel is a collection of sixteen interrelated stories centered on the diverse emotional relationships of four different mother-daughter pairs”. Growing and being
Amy Tan is a Chinese American writer, whose short stories portray the theme that finding the balance between heritage and culture is not always easy. This is seen through Amy Tan’s own life experience and through a couple of the many short stories she has written, for example, “Two Kinds”, “Rice Husband”, and “A Pair of Tickets”. In the following short stories, the daughter becomes everything the mother wished for, but meanwhile, the daughter becomes more American like and loses her Chinese values
that it was the end. The story is a clash between two individuals from two different generations and beliefs (Suyuan who basically grew up in China; and Jing-mei who was born and raised in United States). The theme of the story has so much to do with Amy Tan's own experience particularly her relationship with her mother. It tells the struggles of mother and daughter to understand each other. Though the incidents in the story never really occurred in her life, they were very close to reality. And she
"A Pair of Tickets" by Amy Tan In the story "A Pair of Tickets," by Amy Tan, a woman by the name of Jing-mei struggles with her identity as a Chinese female. Throughout her childhood, she "vigorously denied" (857) that she had any Chinese under her skin. Then her mother dies when Jing-Mei is in her 30's, and only three months after her father receives a letter from her twin daughters, Jing-Mei's half sisters. It is when Jing-mei hears her sisters are alive, that she and her dad take a trip overseas
This is the core idea behind Amy Tan’s short story, “Fish Cheeks,” as she outlines the general idea of self-acceptance. The narrator, fourteen year old Tan, declares her love for her minister’s son, Robert, who unlike herself is “as white as Mary in the manger” (Tan 1). This crush is anything but healthy, primarily because Tan is reluctant to reveal her true self to him. This hesitance she portrays is strikingly recognizable in the teenagers of today’s world. Amy Tan 's story,
In the story 'Two Kinds'; by Amy Tan, we are shown the struggles of a young girl Jing-Mei. Her struggle is that of a young girl growing up and trying to find her own sense of identity. Her troubles are compounded by her mother, who convinces her that she can become someone important. Because of her mother's constant overbearing behavior, Jing-Mei does everything she can to annoy and displease her mother even to the point of being a failure. This fight to find her own identity against her mother's
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
In the essay “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, Tan claims the idea that we speak different languages to communicate with each other and that our intelligence is judged by the way we speak. As a fictional author, Tan is amazed by language and uses it as a part of her work. Tan observes experiences that helped her notice the different type of “englishes” she uses. As child born in a chines culture, tan had to speak to types of languages. One language she used was academic English, which she learned from
confusion with my mother related to our different beliefs.”, said Amy Tan, an American writer of Chinese origin. She is a writer exposed to and grew up in American culture but was also influenced by her traditional Chinese culture. Amy is most famous for the novel ‘The Joy Luck Club’, which was a great success when it was first published. The three influential factors are the culture she lives in, her childhood and her career life. Amy Tan was born in Oakland, California in 1952. As the second migrant
The Rules of the Game by Amy Tan In "The Rules of the Game," a short story about a young Chinese-American girl, Waverly Jong, embarks journey to become a chess master. Waverly's mother believes she is a key component during this journey. Even though the mother actually has no true role in Waverly's adventure, she continues to believe it is her as the one who is succeeding. This belief is a necessity for Waverly's mother because she has nothing for herself. Waverly's mother has to live through
Life is tough when one doesn’t speak the native language or is new to a country. “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan is written in a first person point of view that tells the audience a story of a non-English speaker.Tan states the difficulty for her mother to communicate with another because people disrespect her mother. The presupposition that people treat one differently or without respect when one doesn’t speak English is a categorical truth. Tan’s purpose is to share her story and give the audience