Rebellion in Two Kinds by Amy Tan

851 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Adolescents often rebel against their parents essay

Two Kinds

In this story “Two kinds” by Amy Tan it shows the great expectations of a mother, who wishes for her child to be famous and a genius. The mother coming from a society that is very hard working and obedient trying to instill the upbringing she had I her life. The child Jing-mei is a typical example of a child rebelling against their mothers wishes no matter how hard the parental figure tries, the child wishes to perform things in their own way and use their own freewill and to do things in there own timely fashion.

The mother moves to America after much heartache in China. She has lost everything as quoted “she had come here in 1949 after losing everything in China: her mother and father, her family home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls.” (pg 1218). She begins a new life in America raising Jing-mei how every parent raises their own child to become the best they can. She believes that moving to America that anything can be accomplished and uses Jing-mei to live that life through by making her watch certain television show. Shows that portray how famous people act and to see how child prodigies perform in front of audiences. Always testing her child with quizzes that became very hard as quoted “ The tests got harder-multiplying numbers in my head, finding the queen of hearts in a deck of cards, trying to stand on my head without using my hands, predicting the daily

Temperatures in Los Angelas, New York, and London.” (pg 1219). Afterwards the mother trades maid services for piano lessons and puts more pressure on Jing-mei to be this great child prodigy that will be very famous. Like any parent they have high expectations of their child or children to live a great life that is equally t...

... middle of paper ...

...uld. They have been the one to comfort us when the world seemed to turn evil. They have been the one to love us when we needed it the most, by the end of the story the outlook on the pressures take a different turn. Jing-mei has matured from a girl into a woman and as a peace of offering, her mother offers to give her the piano the main object of adversity between the two of them. This offers her the realization that she has become herself on her own terms, even with all of this hardship. She also learns that with everything her mother pushed on her or made her do it was out of love to make Jing-mei have a better and more satisfying life than the one her mother had to go through.

Works Cited

Tan, Amy “Two Kinds” In The Harbrace Anthology of Literature. Fourth Edition. Edited by Jon C. Stott et al. Canada: Thomson Nelson, 2006 pg 1015-22

Show More
Related

  • Son of the Revolution by Liang Heng and Judith Shapiro

    1281 Words  | 3 Pages

    "You're a human being, not an animal. You have the right to be loved" (262). "Son of the Revolution" by Liang Heng and Judith Shapiro was a book that showed how inhumane many of the aspects of Chinese life were during the Cultural Revolution. The book followed Liang Heng through many of his childhood memories to his departure from China in his twenties. The book applied a real face to the important movements during the Cultural Revolution, the effects that "the cult of Mao" had on society and Heng, and the way the period affected Heng's personal family life.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Identity In The Jade Peony

    1240 Words  | 3 Pages

    This is evident in the persistence of elderly characters, such as Grandmother Poh-Poh, who instigate the old Chinese culture to avoid the younger children from following different traditions. As well, the Chinese Canadians look to the Vancouver heritage community known as Chinatown to maintain their identity using on their historical past, beliefs, and traditions. The novel uniquely “encodes stories about their origins, its inhabitants, and the broader society in which they are set,” (S. Source 1) to teach for future generations. In conclusion, this influential novel discusses the ability for many characters to sustain one sole

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Revolution Is Not A Dinner Party

    1904 Words  | 4 Pages

    It begins with a happy 9-year-old girl named Ling who lives in a hospital complex with her father, a very successful surgeon, and her mother, a well-known doctor. Her mother, known as Mrs. Chang, is very strict, always nagging Ling to act like a woman and to be perfect in almost every way. Ling believes it is because her mother never wanted to have a daughter. Father, on the other hand, Mr. Chang, spent much time with Ling, and got very close to her, teaching her reading and English lessons. He would

    Read More

  • Summary Of 'The Princess Of Nebraska And' A Thousand Years Of Good Prayers?

    1729 Words  | 4 Pages

    The two short stories, “The Princess of Nebraska” and “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers” by Yiyun Li, depict the lives of two people under Chinese communist control, trapped by the social restraints of their society in search of individual salvation. In “Princess of Nebraska”, a young girl (Sasha) struggles to find internal purpose and satisfaction within her life, feeling that the restraints of communist control keep her from achieving the sense of self she desires. She believes the United States is the solution to gaining her individual freedom and fantasizes the recreation of her identity and life. Similarly, “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers” revolves around the same theme of social freedom vs the discovery of the individual self. Mr.Shi,

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Capitalism In Street Angel

    921 Words  | 2 Pages

    To achieve this goal, he crafts a stylized capitalistic society that inflicts grave injustices upon his protagonists. The avarice inherent to this society governs everyday life within Street Angel. Xiao Hong, for example, lives with adoptive parents so corrupted by greed that they prostitute their older daughter, Xiao Yun. In a transaction that reflects the inhumanity of higher-level capitalism, these parents sell Xiao Hong to a local gangster. By juxtaposing the implications of this sale with Xiao Hong’s exaggerated innocence, Yuan appeals to his audience’s emotions, stoking anger toward social values that could enable such barbaric exploitation of the poor. Yuan employs a similar juxtaposition later in Street Angel, when Wang visits a lawyer’s office in a skyscraper – an environment so divorced from his day-to-day realities that he remarks, “This is truly heaven.” Wang soon learns otherwise, when the lawyer rebuffs his naïve plea for assistance by coldly reciting his exorbitant fees. The lawyer’s emotionless greed – a callousness that represents capitalism at its worst – contrasts strikingly with Wang’s naïve purity, a quality betrayed by his awestruck expression while inside the skyscraper. Again, this juxtaposition encourages the film’s audience to sympathize with a proletarian victim and condemn the social values that enable his

    Read More

  • The Joy Luck Club Identity Essay

    586 Words  | 2 Pages

    Woo cleans the house herself and no longer has a housekeeper. With the money she saved, she hired Mr. Chong, an ancient piano teacher, who can barely hear and whose eyes are too dulled to tell when Jing-mei messes up. He is so genuine that Jing-mei feels guilty and picks up the basic skills, but she is so bent on not pleasing her mother that she continues to purposefully lack in her efforts. She hates the piano. She hates the fact that her mother is shaping her identity. She hates that her mother forces it upon her. She hates that it's everything she isn’t: disciplined, elegant, and most of all controlled. Jing-mei wants to be who she wants to be, and with the piano around, she only continues to be who her mother wants her to be, but she can not tell her mother this. She is supposed to play a piece called “Pleading Child” which is a “simple, moody piece that sounded more difficult than it was”. Even though she had not practiced and didn't know the piece, she played anyway. Halfway through, she began to realize how awful she was. The silence that followed her performance and her parent’s disappointed looks unfolded the undeniable truth, Jing-mei was not a piano

    Read More

  • Fierce Rebellion by Stephen B. Oates

    689 Words  | 2 Pages

    The book Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner’s Fierce Rebellion (New York, Ny: Harper Perennial, 1990) by Stephen B. Oates portrays a slave rebellion and uprising in the 1830’s. Oates has written many books on American history and his style of writing makes his books readable and popular. He has become a unique storyteller of his time, in his book he tells of a transformation that changed the city of South Hampton, Virginia forever, an unspeakable action heard throughout the whole nation and insurrection. What is an insurrection? It is a rebellion, revolution, mutiny and uprising, a concept that has never lost hope in African-American slaves.

    Read More

  • Symbolism in Two Kinds by Amy Tan and Everyday Use by Alice Walker

    522 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jing-Mei was forced to take piano lessons; this only further upset her as she felt that she was a constant disappointment. Her mother was mad at her on a regular basis because Jing-Mei stood up for herself and explained to her that she didn’t want to be a child prodigy.

    Read More

  • Conflicting Points of View in Two Kinds by Amy Tan

    1252 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Subjugation of Women Exposed in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

    959 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ann-Mei, Lindo, and Ying Ying subjugated by males because of their sex, and Chinese tradition. Ann-Mei is oppressed in many ways. Her mother is invited to spend time at the home of a wealthy merchant named Wu Tsing. During the night he comes into Ann-Mei's mother's room and rapes her. Despite emotionally scaring Ann-Mei this demonstrates the lack of respect for a woman in China.

    Read More

  • The Relationship of Mothers and their Expectations of Daughters in Amy Tan’s "Two Kinds"

    745 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Only two kinds of daughters,” “Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!”(476). When a mother pushes her daughter to hard, the daughter rebels, but realizes in the end that their mothers only wanted the best for them and had their best interest at heart. In the beginning, Jing-mei, is “just as excited as my mother,”(469). Jing-mei eagerly hoped to make her mother proud. However, her mother’s obsession with becoming a prodigy discouraged Jing-mei.

    Read More

  • Conflict And Conflicts In Two Kinds, By Amy Tan

    819 Words  | 2 Pages

    From the beginning of time, mothers and daughters have had their conflicts, tested each other’s patience, and eventually resolved their conflicts. In the story “Two Kinds,” written by Amy Tan, Jing-Mei and her mother are the typical mother-daughter duo that have their fair share of trials. Jing-Mei is an American Chinese Girl who struggles to please her mother by trying to be the “Prodigy” that her mother wishes for. Her mother has great ideas to make her daughter famous with hopes that she would become the best at everything she did. Throughout the story, the mother and daughter display distinct characteristics giving the reader insight of who they are, how they each handle conflict, and helps define how their relationship changes over time.

    Read More

  • Two Kinds by Amy Tan

    966 Words  | 2 Pages

    "My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America" (491). This ideology inspired Jing-mei’s mother to work hard to create a better life for herself and her family in a new country. The search of the American dream exerts a powerful influence on new arrivals in the United States. However, realizing that they may not achieve the dream of material success and social acceptance, parents tend to transfer that burden to their children. It is a burden where dreams usually fall short of expectations.

    Read More

  • Theme Of A Pair Of Tickets

    1019 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird

    3438 Words  | 7 Pages

    Mitgang tells us that the novel is about the life of two children who live in a small town, where they deal with racism in society. Prejudice surrounds their childhood, and it lurks with them while they are playing, and even while they are in the classroom. Mitgang tells us that on top of all this, racism is conveyed in the children?s language.

    Read More

More about Rebellion in Two Kinds by Amy Tan

Open Document