Mother Knows Best Often times in literature, character relationships change and evolve. “Two Kinds” written by Amy Tan, is a story about a daughter’s uncertain feelings toward her mother. Overtime, the mother-daughter relationship gets ruined when the daughter does not believe in her potential to be a child prodigy as strongly as her mother does. After an attentive analysis of the story, the reader is aware of how Jing-mei’s feelings toward her mother changes, why they did so, and how those changes affected the entire story. Throughout the story, Jing-mei’s feeling toward her mother change in critical ways. As a young child, Jing-mei wants constant attention from her mother, going so far as agreeing to become a child prodigy. In the story, Jing-mei commented, “In fact, in the beginning, I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so” (Tan 221). This was before her mother becomes highly adamant about wanting her child to become a prodigy. As time went on, she wanted Jing-mei to become the epitome of a child star. Jing-mei expresses, “Soon after my mother got this idea about Shirley Temple, she took me to a beauty training student in the Mission district and put me in the hands of a student who could barely hold the scissors without shaking. Instead of big fat curls, I emerged with an uneven mass of crinkly black fuzz” (Tan 221). This shows that her mother’s eagerness for a famous daughter is emerging, and it comes to the point where she wants to change her child’s
Throughout her childhood life her mother, Suyuan, was continuously pushing her to be her best. Jing-Mei purposely tried to fail at everything to prover to her mother that she could never become a great and famous person. Then after a piano recital that went horridly wrong, her and her mother had an argument and their relationship was never the same. Many years later Suyuan tried to give Jing-mei the piano that she had as a child. She refused the offer, but than a year later her mother died and Jing-Mei was cleaning out her mother’s house and decided to play the piano and she was surprised that she still knew how.
With the mother pushing her this much it makes her very strict. She doesn’t really give Jing a choice. This also made Jing feel like her mother didn’t like her the way she was. “’Why don’t you like me the way I am?’ I cried.
(Vanity Fair) Jing-mei’s mother is always bossing her around to make sure that she will have a good future. It is not just the children who have weights on their backs, it is also the parents. “It’s about giving your kids a better life-- as if parenting didn’t come with enough pressures already.” (Vanity Fair) Jing-mei’s mother has a lot of pressure on her because she does not want to be embarrassed by other parents who are better at parenting than she is. She is always trying to make sure her daughter is better than the other kids.
She then uses these “new thoughts” and ideas to state that she “won’t let her [mother] change” her into the person she seeks her daughter to be. When Jing-Mei experiences a realization that she is her own person and not simply another part of her mother, she can embrace the comfort of knowing that she will not change for anyone, and is simply extraordinary for having her own thoughts and feelings. This reflects how Amy Tan can understand her thoughts and feelings about the hardships in her relationship with her mother as a way to connect more closely to her characters and make them more realistic in her writing (“How Amy Tan’s family stories made her a
At first Jing-Mei grew in her dreams and desirers to be perfect for her family; “In all of my imaginings
on the other hand Jing-Mei is America born and has more of an American culture mind set, which cause her to seem rebellious to her mother. Said by Jing-Mei’s Mother, “only two kinds of daughters!” she shouted in Chinese “those who are obedient and those who follow their mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient Daughter!”
A Story In the poem, A Story, Li-Young Lee uses specific diction and juxtaposition to reveal the affection the father and son have for each other as well as the fears behind a changing relationship. This complex relationship between the father and the son is depicted throughout the boy’s adjourn for a new story. The poem is written through the juxtaposition of the father: the father in the present and the father’s prediction of the future.
This disagreement quickly became a source of resentment and anger for both of them, but Jing-Mei and her mother were unable to resolve this conflict because of their different backgrounds and experiences. The story showcases how relationships between mothers and daughters can be strained because of differences in culture and a lack of communication. One of the difficulties between Jing-Mei and her mother is their different cultural backgrounds, which is supported by two points from the story. Firstly, Jing-Mei and her mother both disagreed on the opportunities that existed in America. According to Singer, Amy Tan uses “two entirely
“After losing everything in China…She never looked back with regret. ”(Chunk 1 ¶3). Jing-Mei’s mother is a Chinese immigrant with the typical ‘everything is better in America’ mindset. Jing-Mei, being raised in America, had more of an American mindset. “You want me to be someone i’m not…I’ll never be the daughter you want me to be!”
At her first glance at them, she knew exactly who they were because of their resemblance to their mother. However, as she approached them, she realized that there were no evident similarities in features between them and her mother, but that the similarities she noticed at first ran deep in their blood: they were family. And at this brief moment of realization, the most perceptible change in Jing-Mei took place. She said, “Now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious.
Shirley Temple was a great dancer and singer and Jing-Mei’s mom wants her to be the same. Jing-Mei has to get her hair like Peter Pan because a student messed it up. Jing-Mei’s mom wants her to be somebody that she does not want to be. In fact, Shirley Temple and Peter Pan are two people to reference to when trying to become a
One dynamic that false expectation strains is the relationship between Suyuan and her daughter Jing-Mei. In a vignette told from the perspective of the latter, Suyuan has the notion that Jing-Mei should be able to perform something at the level of a prodigy. She begins
When she was doing her hair she turned it into a afro. Jing -Mei’s mom said, “ You look like Negro Chinese”, because her afro was a style for African Americans. Then instructor advised that they should use a Peter Pan style haircut. The instructor said, “ The haircut is very popular these days”. When Jing –mei got her new cut she was excited, but later realized it was harder than it seems.
To follow through with this objective, her mother bends over backwards in search of the "right" kind of prodigy for her daughter. Although Jing-mei determinedly upsets her mother 's desires to make her a prodigy, it was as if it were decades afterwards in life that she picks up the understanding into her mother 's basic motives. This exposition will endeavor that "Two Kinds" is a compelling story to bring to light on the issues of identity. At the start of the story, the origin starts to appear I latch onto the
Jing Mei, while portrayed as an obedient child, is only willing to listen to her mother to a certain extent. Throughout the story, it is consistently hinted that Jing Mei would eventually explode against her mother as an attempt to free herself from her mother’s chains. In addition, after the fiasco at the piano recital, she eventually derives further from her mother’s wishes as she “didn 't get straight A...didn 't become class president...didn 't get into Stanford...dropped out of college.” (54). On the flip side, Jing Mei’s mother is a stereotypical Chinese parent who is fully determined to ensure her daughter’s success in a new environment.