Amy Tan Two Kinds

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“I wish I were dead! Like them” (Amy Tan 231). Two kinds is a short story by Amy Tan which is about a girl who rises against her mother's expectations. After a careful analysis of the story, the reader comes to understand how JIng-Mei’s feelings change, why her feelings change, and how this changed relationship affects the whole story. Jing-Mei’s mother has always been hopeful for her daughter even though Jing-Mei has not always been hopeful towards herself. “ My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America” (Amy Tan 220). From her mother’s supportive nature, it has presented how she feels towards Jing-Mei. After another failure, Jing-Mei has started to lose faith in her abilities. “ And after seeing my mother’s disappointed face once again, something inside me began to die” (Amy Tan 223). The narrator can sense that because …show more content…
“ You have natural talent. You could be genius if you want to” ( Amy Tan 227). Believing in her daughter, Jing-Mei’s mother has been supportive even after everything that has happened. Finally at the end of the story Jing-Mei begins to piece together what she couldn't understand as a child. “ And after I played them both a few times. I realized they were two halves of the same song” ( Amy Tan 232). As an adult, Jing-Mei now realizes what her mom has been saying all her life. The mother was only trying to show her daughter that she is capable of anything. Therefore, after reading the story, the relationship between a mother and daughter is crucial to a healthy lifestyle. People need to communicate better for a better relationship, nothing will get better if no one speaks their opinion. Mother’s need to stop controlling their children into doing something they don't enjoy. Children need to not make a huge commotion over not getting their way. Most of the time, parents only want the best for their children and they want them to know that as

Summary Of Two Kinds By Amy Tan

quality of life is not the best, with more than 1 billion people living on that land, resources are sometimes not enough for everyone. That is why a lot of Chinese quit China for America to offer a better life to their children. Amy Tan, an American writer, wrote the story “Two Kinds” about a mother who pushes her daughter to become a prodigy. The story begins with a mother that lays all of her hope on her adoptive country and on her daughter. After losing everything in China, she arrives in America in…

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Amy Tan Two Kinds Essay

Amy Tan's short story "Two Kinds" explains the problems that a mother who is intoxicated by the idea of the "American dream" and a daughter who just wants to live a normal life, run into. The story conveys a strong message of high expectations coming from the main character’s mother, which are, much to her dismay, met with resistance and eventually a harsh loathing. With the combination of disapproval displayed in the passage and the sudden awareness of what is truly inside of her, “Ni Kan” comes…

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Summary Of Two Kinds By Amy Tan

In the excerpt “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, a daughter’s cultural views are put up against her own mother’s views and beliefs. The one and only daughter in the excerpt, Amy Tan, feels imprisoned by her mother’s control. Her mother tried her best to influence young Amy. Amy eventually got fed up with her mother's control and got angry with her mom. She eventually cried,”Why don’t you like me the way I am?”(Tan 20) giving a great example Amy and her mom has very different belief views. Amy believes that she…

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Amy Tan Two Kinds Conflict

The short story "Two Kinds" was written by Amy Tan. When I first read this story, I felt that I had a connection with the narrator. The story uses all five key elements from the beginning of the story till the end. The most important and necessary elements that I found make the story as great as it is are character, setting, theme, conflict, and point of view. Of these five elements, I noticed that two stood out to me the whole time I was reading the story and both elements made me want to keep reading…

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Two Kinds By Amy Tan Character Analysis

The short story “Two Kinds” written by Amy Tan is about a mother and her daughter Jing Mei. Jing Mei struggles with the high expectations of her mother, to become a prodigy. After losing everything in China, Jing Mei’s mother comes to America with the dream that Jing Mei will be successful. She would present tests to Jing Mei on math and geography in the hopes of unlocking some hidden genius. Jing-Mei does everything she can to annoy and disappoint her mother even to the point of being a failure…

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The Short Story 'Two Kinds' By Amy Tan

To Raise a Prodigy The short story Two Kinds by Amy Tan explores the many complexities of the relationships shared between immigrant parents, and their second-generation children. This very notion serves as the basis of the story’s conflict, in which Jing-mei’s mother, having abandoned her harrowing life in China for the betterment of her daughter’s future, relentlessly enforces her cultural anxieties of success upon Jing-mei. Ultimately, the unreasonable expectations that are placed on Jing-mei’s…

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Parents Struggle In Two Kinds By Amy Tan

Amy Tan uses her own experiences as being a Chinese American. Jing-Mei wants nothing but to be herself. She feels as if her mother is not happy with her as a person. “Why don’t you like me the way I am? I’m not a genius! I can’t play the piano.” (Tan 1120) Jing-Mei just wanted to live her life as a regular American teenager. Instead her mother wanted her to be a pianist, and…

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Amy Tan Two Kinds Summary

Former Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow once said “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” But in Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds” there is neither hard work nor talent. Two Kinds is about a Chinese mother that moved to the United States to chase the American Dream. This mother is looking to achieve her American Dream through her daughter June by trying to make her a young prodigy which she is clearly not. The conflict is largely driven by the mother who is supposed to be the adult in this…

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Two Kinds By Amy Tan Literary Analysis

In Amy Tan’s short story “Two Kinds”, Tan writes about a mother who is from China and now she lives in America in the 1950’s with her daughter, Jing-mei. The mother sees America as a country of hope and new beginnings and a wants a better life for the family. The mother has high expectations for the daughter and pushes her relentlessly. The daughter struggles with the mother’s hopes and dreams. Those are the mother’s hopes and dreams and not the daughter’s. As young children we want to make our…

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Short Story Summary: Two Kinds By Amy Tan

Two kinds Two kinds is a short story written by Amy tan. It is about a Chinese family that moved from China to America. In the story Amy described the relationship between Ni Kan, a young girl, and her immigrant mother. Moving to America her mother lost everything including her family, however the one thing that she didn’t lost was the hope that her daughter will have it all and be famous one day. It was sad how the mother pressured her daughter to be a genius and would not accept her daughter…

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