The two short stories "Catch the Moon" and "Two Kinds" were written by Judith Ortiz Cofer and Amy Tan. Both stories include a single parent and a child that are not getting along. The main character of "Catch the Moon" is named Luis while the leading role in "Two Kinds" is Jing-mei. While Luis and Jing-mei share many differences, they also have similarities. "Two Kinds" is about Jing-mei and her rebellion against her mother. Jing-mei grew up in a small Chinatown. While the story mainly focuses on her and her mother, her father is also a part of her family. The story starts off with Jing-mei and her mother watching Shirley Temple, a star in the 1930's. While watching, her mother gained an aspiration of making Jing-mei be the best she can possibly be. At first, Jing-mei was excited about being a prodigy and worked to her hearts content. …show more content…
Slowly but surely, she phased out of her mother's dream, and started acting bored and careless as her "training" got more vigorous. When her mother bought her a piano and made her do lessons, she continued to disobey and ignore everything the instructor taught. But when she had to perform in a talent show and failed miserably, that's when things went downhill. When the family got home, her mother stated that she should've tried harder and did her best. Jing-mei and her mother had a life-changing argument, with her mother just wanting to be the best she possibly can, and Jing-mei saying that she wished she was dead like the twins. The mother blanked out and never talked about making her try her best ever again. When Jing-mei turned twelve, her mother gave her the piano, symbolizing as a peace treaty, even though she didn't take it. Years later when Jing-mei's mother has passed, she returns to the piano and realizes that her mother was right all along, and that she should've listened. While Luis' conflict wasn't as big, it did still change his lifestyle for the better. In "Catch the Moon" Luis and his father also have emotional issues towards each other.
The setting takes place in Luis' father's car junkyard business. Luis has just returned from juvenile detention from breaking and entering an old lady's home, to which he states was just for his reputation with his gang. The father makes him clean dirty hubcaps in the yard, and though he was snarky, he still obliged. During dinner, Luis asks his dad to take the car for a drive, and while the father is wary, he eventually gives over the keys. The keys act as a sign of trust and a link to his mother. Two years before the story, Luis' mother passed away from cancer and he and his father haven't gotten over as they still have strong emotions about her, even if they never discuss it. Luis drives to the funeral home when his mother was mourned at and, inevitably breaks down and cries, releasing all of his emotions and past. When Luis returns, he searches all night to find the missing hubcap, symbolizing his new lifestyle change. Both characters in the short story have had life-changing moments that changed them and their
lifestyle. The two characters in "Catch the Moon" and "Two Kinds", Luis and Jing-mei have similarities and major differences. Luis and Jing-mei are similar by both having some type of emotional issues with themselves and rebelling against their parents. They also changed their lifestyle to the way the thought was best, even if they weren't right at the time. Another similarity is that their parent just wished the best for them and wants their kids to be the happy and successful as they can be. Some differences is that Luis rebelled because he wanted an escape from his life, while Jing-mei just wants to be herself and not try. Another difference is that they both rebel in different ways, Luis replying sarcastically and cynically, while Jing-mei simply ignore and eventually yells. "Catch the Moon" and "Two Kinds" by Judith Ortiz Cofer and Amy Tan are about a parent and their child that rebels to their requests. While Luis, the main character of "Catch the Moon" and Jing-mei, the main character of "Two Kinds" rebel for their own reasons, they both want make their own choices future instead of their parents doing it for them. While both stories share similarities and differences, their individual themes intertwine and create a message, that parents shouldn't control your every move and to create your own future for your life.
The main events of the story occur in Honduras and Mexico. Tegucigalpa, Honduras is where Enrique was born and raised by several family members. In Tegucigalpa, Enrique is shuffled from house to house simply because he is unable to control his emotions. This makes Enrique angry and he begins to rebel against the people he lives with. At the age of 17, Enrique decides to leave his family in Honduras and travel to the United States in hopes that he will reunite with his mother. His journey will take him through Chiapas, Mexico, the most hostile city at the point of his travel. In Chiapas, corrupt Mexican police officers and gangs stop migrants and order them to give up anything in their possession. Enrique was beaten and thrown off a train in Chiapas by gang members who raiding the train. After being thrown off of the train Enrique realizes that the journey is not going to be as easy as he dreamed it was. The second most hostile city of the trip, Oaxaca is where many migrants are deported. The people of Oaxaca have a very distinct way of speaking and behaving. In Oaxaca Enrique is kept on toes, wondering if he will be deported because of his awkward dress and dialect. The last important place in the story is Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Nuevo Laredo is last stop for immigrants travelling to the United States. From Nuevo Laredo immigrants will illegally enter Texas and begin their struggle for financial success in America. Enrique does finally enter Texas after being pushed on a boat from Nuevo Laredo. Once he entered Texas, Enrique takes a cab to North Carolina hoping to find his mother. Sonia Nazario begins the story by describing Enrique’s confusion as to why his mother has left him. He doesn’t understand that she can’t afford food and ...
The Tunnel” by Doris Lessing, and the second story is “Brothers Are The Same”, by Beryl
Amy Tan's "A Pair of Tickets," especially, explores the relationship of setting to place, heritage, and ethnic identity. Jing-Mei Woo, the main character, has trouble accepting that she is Chinese, despite her heritage. Jing-Mei Woo believed, at fifteen, that she had no Chinese whatsoever below her skin. If anything, she perceives herself as Caucasian; even her Caucasian friends agreed that she "was as Chinese as they were." Her mother, however, told her differently, "It's in your blood, waiting to be let go." This terrified Jing-Mei, making her believe that it would cause her to suddenly change, "I saw myself transforming like a werewolf." Jing-Mei Woo finally realizes that she has never really known what it means to be Chinese because she was born and has lived in America all her life. After her mother's death, Jing-Mei discovers that she has two twin sisters living in China who have been searching for their mother and that s...
In the novel Walk Two Moons, two stories are going on at once: Sal’s story and Phoebe’s story. The stories are similar and different in many ways. Both characters and the reader learn important life lessons throughout the course of the book. Most of these come from mysterious notes that Phoebe keeps finding on her doorstep throughout the story.
She’s considering having an abortion. On the other hand the daughter wants to get merry to her African boyfriend he wants her to move with him to Africa. Momma is very excited to own her first home and they also refuse to take the money from Mr. Linden, they are tired of living in the apartment, momma thinks a house is the best investment. The son is going through some extremely hard times after losing all that money trying to open a liquor store. In the story the son faces more problems the son has the most problems for example he’s in charged of the house after his father die he took over all the responsibility he’s father had. During the 1950s after the father die the son usually took over the family and all its
Jing-mei 's mother wants Jing-mei to be a prodigy and get popular. Thus, the mother rents a piano for Jing-mei to help her achieve this. Many years later, Jing-mei finds the piano in a broken state, so she decides to have it repaired. She starts playing the song she used to play, “Pleading Child.” But to the right of “Pleading Child,” she finds a second song named “Perfectly Contented.” She starts to play both songs, “And after I [Jing-mei] had played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.” (6) Jing-mei’s mother tells Jing-mei that there are two kinds of people: the respectful kind and the disrespectful kind. At that time, Jing-mei also finds out that there are two kinds of people inside her. She could choose to be the kind where the person is a prodigy and respectful, or be the kind that is ugly in the eyes of people. When she plays “Pleading Child” and “Perfectly Contented,” Jing-mei realizes that her identity had changed completely because of her laziness and beliefs. Jing-mei learns that there are two kinds of people in the world, and she should choose the right
The basic plot is based around two Chicano girls and their childhood lives. The movie is split up into three episodes. Maribel “Mousie” and Mona “Sad Girl” were childhood best friends that become enemies over a boy, Ernesto. Sad Girl is the main narrator of the movie. This drug dealer first falls for Mousie, but then gets Sad Girl pregnant also. He spends most of his money on his two babies and his prize possession, Suavecito, his mini-truck. The two young mothers arrange a fight one-on-one for a bloody confrontation. Neither of them gets hurt, but Ernesto is shot by one of his Caucasian clients on the same night. With Ernesto out of both of their lives, they can move on and earn back each other’s friendship.
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 to meet her relatives and finally unites with her sisters. This story focuses on a woman's philosophical struggle to accept her true identity.
Jing-mei finds her cultural identity when she becomes and adult. One half of her wants to be that perfect, obedient child that her mother wants. The other half wants to have attention from her mother. She is that “Pleading Child” and “Perfectly Contented” daughter. Although Jing-mei and her mother’s culture clashed, she was able to find who she really
Walter, however, was taken advantage of due to his naive nature of believing as a black man that he could become rich. Walter has the ideal life planned out for his family because he has the dream of being able to provide for them and become rich, for example sending Travis off to any college of his choosing. One of these dreams aso includes being able to live in the house that Mama plans on having the family move into. The Younger family believed that they were going to get the house, but a man of the name Mr. Lindner attempts to stop the family from moving in and crush their dreams by not wanting them to move into the new neighborhood. This was solely due to the Youngers race and was very oppressive for Walter and all of his dreams that he had planned out. Mr. Lindner explains to the family that, “It is a matter of the people of Clybourne Park believing, rightly or wrongly, as I say, that for the happiness of all concerned that our Negro families are happier when they live in their own communities” (Hansberry 100). Since the neighborhood doesn’t want the Younger family based on their race, they are making Walter realize his American Dream for his family very difficult to be obtained since he has imagined so many good things to happen. This oppressive and racist views from Mr. Lindner and the new community emphasize the setback
The story "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan is about a mother and daughter who have strong conflicting ideas about what it means to have a sense of self. This may be partly due to the mother growing up in China, which is a very different culture than the American culture where endless opportunities are available to anyone who wants to pursue them. Jing-mei's mother wants her daughter to be the best, a prodigy of sorts, and to have the kind of life, full of hopes and dreams that she did not have. In the beginning of the story Jing-mei liked the idea of becoming a prodigy however, the prodigy in her became impatient. "If you don't hurry up and get me out of here, I'm disappearing for good." It warned. "And then you'll always be nothing" (500). After disappointing her mother several times Jing-mei started to detest the idea of becoming a prodigy. The idea Jing-mei's mother had for her to become a prodigy was too much pressure for a small child and was something that Jing-mei was clearly not ready to be. As a result the pressure that her mother laid upon her only made Jing-mei rebel against her mother and she resisted in giving her best. Jing-mei did this because she only wanted her mother's love and acceptance for who she was not only what she could become. Furthermore, Jing-mei's point of view of being the kind of person that one can be proud of was very different from her mother's point of view.
In Tan’s Two Kinds the story is a about an Asian family trying to assimilate to an American lifestyle. The mother, who was originally from china, wants to turn her daughter into a "prodigy" so she can be famous and live an extravagant lifestyle. The mother who "Believes you could be anything you wanted to be in America", spends most of her time watching TV, hoping to find a talent, which her daughter might possess. After several attempts at many different talents, the daughter becomes very frustrated and hateful towards her mothers attempts to change her.
Our mothers have played very valuable roles in making us who we are and what we have become of ourselves. They have been the shoulder we can lean on when there is no one else to turn to. They have been the ones we can count on when there is no one else. They have been the ones who love us for who we are and forgive us when no one else wouldn’t. In Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds,” the character Jing-mei experiences being raised by a mother who has overwhelming expectations for her daughter, which causes Jing-mei to struggle with who she wants to be.
When she arrives, she feels somehow proud to be Chinese. But her main reason why she went back home is to reflect her mother past life on her present life. Through the setting and her relatives, Jing Mei learns the nature of Chinese American culture. The main setting takes place in China, effects of the main character’s point of view through changing her sense of culture and identity. The time period plays a large role on the story, there is disconnect between the mother and daughter who came from different culture. In “A Pair of Tickets”, we learn it’s a first person narrator, we also learn detail of what the narrator is thinking about, detail of her past and how life compared to China and the US are very different. The theme is associated with the motherland and also has to deal with her mother’s death and half sisters. Her imagination of her sister transforming into adult, she also expected them to dresses and talk different. She also saw herself transforming, the DNA of Chinese running through her blood. In her own mind, from a distance she thinks Shanghai, the city of China looks like a major American city. Amy Tan used positive imagery of consumerism to drive home her themes of culture and identity, discovering her ancestral
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.