Often in literature, character relationships change and evolve. “Two Kinds,” written by Amy Tan, is a narrative telling the story of a mother and daughter who endure both internal and external conflicts, impacting the relationship between them. Arguments regarding Jing-Mei’s future fame and fortune affect the emotional bond between them, also changing her overall attitude and personality. While on this journey, both characters evolve dramatically as the resolution approaches. After a careful analysis of the story, the reader understands how Jing-mei’s feelings changed towards her mother, why her feelings changed, and how this change affects the story as a whole. Throughout the story, Jing-mei’s opinions change due to multiple reasons. For …show more content…
As the story progresses, Jing-mei’s mother creates various tasks and tests to find her daughter’s true calling. The tests she presents to her seem nearly impossible, demoralizing Jing-mei. The narrator stresses, “The tests got harder and harder--multiplying numbers in my head, finding the queen of hearts in a deck of cards….One night I had to look at a page from the Bible for three minutes and then report everything I could remember” (Tan 19). In this quote, she names the demanding tests that Jing-mei’s mother put on her daughter’s shoulders. It shows just how determined she is to make her child a prodigy. As the challenges begin to overwhelm her, Jing-mei decides that she will no longer allow her mother to change her. Instead of agreeing on a compromise, the two seem to bicker endlessly. Jing-mei claims, “I had new thoughts, willful thoughts--or, rather thoughts filled with lots of wont’s. I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I’m not” (Tan 19). Here it shows the exact point in which Jing-mei decides she will rebel against her mother and what she believes in. However, their quarrel does not end there. Her mother, although Jing-mei embarrassed herself, still pushes her to learn piano. The narrator comments, “‘Four clock,’ she reminded me, as if it were any other day. I was stunned, as though she were asking me to go through the talent show torture again” (Tan 23). Within this quote it …show more content…
Because of her mother’s harsh, strict ways, an emotional barrier and strong resentment begins to develop between her and her daughter. The narrator expresses, “When my mother told me this, I felt as though I had been sent to hell. I whined, and then kicked my foot a little when I couldn’t stand it anymore. ‘Why don’t you like me the way I am?’ I cried” (Tan 20). The previous quote demonstrates the abandonment Jing-mei feels from her mother simply because she is not the “perfect” or “ideal” child. The final remark Jing-mei strikes her mother with finally terminates their disputes, but not without creating an incurable distance between them. She attacks, “And that’s when I remembered the babies she lost in China, the ones we never talked about. ‘Then I wish I’d never been born!’ I shouted. ‘I wish I were dead! Like them’” (Tan 24). This moment is significant because it is the minute in which Jing-mei finally stands up to her mother to end the constant battle between them. For the duration of the progressing years of her life, she continues to disappoint her mother without remorse for what she has done. Her grudge stays in place until the death of her mother which opens her eyes. Jing-mei finally appreciates everything her mother tried to do for her to have an eventful, fulfilling life. She begins to view her piano as a trophy for the adventures she endured.
Once the train leaves the border of Hong Kong and enters Shenzhen, Jing-mei says, “I feel different. I can feel the skin on my forehead tingling, my blood rushing through a new course, my bones aching with a familiar old pain. And I think, my mother was right. I am becoming Chinese” (263). Jing-mei’s thoughts are in constant turmoil as she bounces back and forth on what being Chinese is and what her heritage is. The way Jing-mei describes her seven-two year old father as a young boy shows how emotional he is about coming home, that he has a long history in China. Even Jing-mei, who is coming to China for the first time, is feeling emotional about arriving. For example, Jing-mei says, “All he is seeing out the train window is a sectioned field of yellow, green, and brown, a narrow canal flanking the tracks, low rising hills, and three other people in blue jackets riding an ox-driven cart on this early October morning. And I can’t help myself, I also have misty eyes, as if I had seen this a long, long time ago, and I also almost forgotten” (264). The description of colors such as yellow, green, and brown are earthy and related to season of fall. In a way, the setting is showing that Jing-mei is getting in touch with her roots just like her father is. It would also explain why Jing-mei is suddenly overcome with emotions. A big part her that she has always assumed
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
... her own person and wanting only to be accepted for who she is and not who she could be. Even though the argument was never discussed it still haunted Jing-mei. That is why Jing-mei was surprised when her mother offered her the piano for her thirtieth birthday, she took it as a sign of forgiveness.
...by the wrong person. Only after the death of her mother can she let her guilt override her pride. Only after the death of her mother, when she can act on her own accord and not please her mother, does she truly play the piano. Their conflict has gone unsolved, and the mother has died believing that she was a failure as a parent. Throughout the daughter's childhood, both are trapped in their own selfish illusions. Their personalities clash, and neither is willing to compromise. It is unfortunate that neither can realize the extent to which they have damaged themselves individually and jointly. They are fundamentally the same, but, blinded by tenacity, neither realizes that "they are two halves of the same song."
...ith Jing Mei and her mother, it is compounded by the fact that there are dual nationalities involved as well. Not only did the mother’s good intentions bring about failure and disappointment from Jing Mei, but rooted in her mother’s culture was the belief that children are to be obedient and give respect to their elders. "Only two kinds of daughters.....those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!" (Tan1) is the comment made by her mother when Jing Mei refuses to continue with piano lessons. In the end, this story shows that not only is the mother-daughter relationship intricately complex but is made even more so with cultural and generational differences added to the mix.
Throughout the story, Jing-mei’s feelings towards her mother changed in important ways. When Jing-mei was a young girl she idolized her mother and looked forward to doing well on each of the tests with which she challenged Jing-mei. The narrator
Jing-mei wants to fit in as most teenagers do so she pushes away from her ethnicity because it is not viewed as normal in the American society she grew up in. Victoria Chen states in her academic journal “The American Dream eventually eludes the immigrant woman beyond her best intentions” (3). This causes Jing-mei to never truly learn about her Chinese heritage. Jing-mei is now thrill six with no real knowledge of what is means to be Chinese. Jing-mei starts out in the story as being on a train with her father, Chang Woo, on the way to visit his aunt in Guangzhou.
Jing-Mei gets frustrated because she could not satisfy her mother. After Jing-mei sees her “mother's disappointed face once again”, something inside her begins to die. She begins to rebel and now she sees the “prodigy” in her as the cause of the rebellion. “In the years that followed, I failed her so many times, each time asserting my own will, … for unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be, I could only be me.” Jing- mei expressed her anger by going against her mother's expectations which started from her childhood experiences.
Also, Jing Mei fears that her mother will not love her for who she is unless she is able to succeed in America. Towards the end of the story the daughter got fed up with the mother because she is tired of doing everything the mother
In addition, Jing-mei sends a wake-up call to her mother about how different it is to live in American and how being your own person is more commonly observed than in China where you have to obey and be the person your parents make you out to be.
Compare to childhood and adulthood, Jing-mei has insight about role of mother when she grows up and she has her own definition about the mother. She did not follow the plan that her mother wants at first; however, she becomes to the person that her mother expected but in different
The culmination of the conflict came when Jing-mei decides to challenge her mother. Jing-mei tells her mother “I wish I were dead! Like them” these words cause her mother to stop in her tracks, it was the point her mother gives up any hope for all the desires she has for Jing-mei. As Jing-mei and her mother struggle to accept each other, find their own identities, and move forward, they do so at the cost of their personal
She sees the opportunities that America has to offer, and does not want to see her daughter throw those opportunities away. She wants the best for her daughter, and does not want Jing-Mei to ever let go of something she wants because it is too hard to achieve. "America is where all my mother's hopes lay. . .There were so many ways for ... ...
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
As we can see in the story, Jing-Mei and her mother do not have a good relationship because of these