Do your parents believe in the American dream? Many people immigrate to the United States believing in the American Dream. These immigrants pass down this dream and the hope of the American Dream to their children from generation to generation. Many parents want the best for their children, but that can result in many generational traumas. In the story “Two Kinds,” written by Amy Tan. The author shows the protagonist a young girl named Jing Mei who is pressured by her mother to become a child prodigy. After her mother saw a little girl playing the piano on the Ed Sullivan show, Jing Mei confronts her mother and argues that she is trying to make her into something she is not. She wants the best for Jing Mei since now they are all in America …show more content…
Back in China, Jing Mei’s mother lost everything and became a strong believer in the American people. So, she wanted a better life for her daughter. Jing Mei could not handle too much of the pressure, so she started to have bad thoughts about herself and worry about whether she is good enough as a person in this world. She thinks to herself, "But sometimes the prodigy in me becomes impatient. ‘If you don't hurry up and get me out of here, I’m disappearing for good,’ he warned. ‘And then you’ll always be nothing’” (Tan 3). This illustrates how societal pressure can affect families who immigrate to America. By forcing their children to do something they might not be naturally talented with or familiar with. Jing Mei’s mother would remind her that she must be a prodigy by making her do daily quizzes and comparing her to different children. She thinks to herself, "In all my imaginings, I was filled with a sense that I would soon become perfect." My mother and father would adore me. I would be beyond reproach; I would never feel sulked for anything” (Tan 3). This shows a way of how she’s supposed to be a child prodigy, not for herself but for the fulfillment of her parents …show more content…
After watching a little girl play piano on the Ed Sullivan show, a few days later Jing Mei was placed with piano lessons from her downstairs neighbor Old Chong. Jing Mei hated it, which resulted in her rebelling against her mother and realizing how she was fulfilling her parents' expectations, but not what she wanted or who she was. “Why don't you like me the way I am? I'm not a genius! I can't play the piano. And even if I could, I would not go on TV if you paid me a million dollars”’ (Tan 4). Jing Mei is not doing piano lessons because she simply enjoys them, but because she wants to live up to her mother’s expectations. On her big performance, she makes a mistake which ruins her whole performance. Her mother insists on trying, but Jing Mei finally speaks out how she truly feels. ‘“You want me to be something I’m not! I sobbed. ‘I’ll never be the kind of daughter you want me to be!” (Tan 6). This is the result of how Jing Mei’s mother tries to satisfy her mother’s expectations by doing something which is making her very frustrated and feel insecure about her true
Transformation to Womanhood in Two Kinds For a lot of us growing up, our mothers have been an integral part of what made us who we are. They have been the one to forgive us when no one else could. They have been the one to comfort us when the world seemed to turn to evil. They have been the one to shelter us when the rain came pouring down. And most importantly, they have been the one to love us when we needed it the most. In "Two Kinds," by Amy Tan, Jing-mei is a young daughter of a Chinese immigrant
Amy Tan‘s ―Two Kinds‖ is a tale of a young Chinese girl‘s life as an adolescent and the influence that her mother has on her growing up. Coming from a first-generation immigrant Korean family, I can‘t help but completely relate to growing up around that type of ―support.‖ Although my parents were fairly westernized in their way of thinking, we had an aunt living with us whom we affectionately called the Tiger Aunt growing up. Having no natural children of her own, she treated my siblings and
A Mother's Dream for her Daughter in Amy Tan's Two Kinds Amy Tan's short story, "Two Kinds" begins with a brief introduction to one mother's interpretation of the American dream. The Chinese mother who lost her family in her native homeland now hopes to recapture part of her loss through her daughter. Those of us who are parents want what is best for our children. We strive to make our children's futures better. In some cases, when our own dreams have either been destroyed or not realized, we
Point of View in Amy Tan’s Short Story, Two Kinds In her short story "Two Kinds," Amy Tan utilizes the daughter's point of view to share a mother's attempts to control her daughter's hopes and dreams, providing a further understanding of how their relationship sours. The daughter has grown into a young woman and is telling the story of her coming of age in a family that had emigrated from China. In particular, she tells that her mother's attempted parental guidance was dominated by foolish hopes
Hamlet: Horatio - A Man of Thought, Fortinbras - A Man of Action In the play Hamlet, William Shakespeare proposed two kinds of men. Horatio is the character who represents a man of thought. The other kind of man is represented by Fortinbras, a man of action. Hamlet is the character that manages to be both, thought and action. Hamlet failed to avenge his father's death because he was both. According to Shakespeare in the play Hamlet, a man could not succeed if ge was both action and
Sight Versus Insight in Oedipus the King "Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eye are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light,which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees anyone whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to
look beyond the limited perspective of the speaker himself, we can see that Marvell is making a statement about how all of us (regardless of gender or involvement in relationships) should savor the pleasures of the moment. For the poet, there are two kinds of attitude toward the present: (1) activities in the present are judged by their impact on the future, and (2) there is no future state--all activities occur in the present and can only be enjoyed or evaluated by their impact at that moment. The
suffering from depression and drug addiction. Moreover, this was a "pity" marriage, done not out of love but out of loyalty to Siddal, believing he could save her from herself. Part of Rossetti's obsession with Dante became an identification of two kinds of love, one being chaste and spiritual and identified with the person of Beatrice, the other being earthly and physical. In marrying Siddal, Rossetti felt he was destroying her position as Beatrice, despite the fact that they were already lovers
There are two kinds of freedom: freedom to, and freedom from. Historically, women in the United States have fought philosophical battles in and out of the home to achieve "freedom to" and have been successful. But what if society suddenly took away these freedoms? What if American women were suddenly returned to their cloistered state of old in which their only freedom was the freedom from the dangers of the surrounding world? Then again, did women ever truly achieve "freedom to" at all? Such
College of Nurse-Midwives quotes "often times a pregnancy that starts out completely normal can develop into a life-threatening problem. These kind of possible complications need not be over looked(1). Therefore I think midwives should not practice on their own, but should be accompanied by an obstetrician and work together. There are two kinds of midwives, an independent and a Certified Nurse Midwife. Independent midwives or "direct entry" midwives attend births at home rather than
This observation leads her to wonder why some moments are so powerful and memorable--even if the events themselves are unimportant--that they can be vividly recalled while other events are easily forgotten. She concludes that there are two kinds of experiences: moments of being and non-being. Woolf never explicitly defines what she means by "moments of being." Instead she provides examples of these moments and contrasts them with moments of what she calls "non-being." She describes
Concerning Human Understanding, respectively. I will outline, then compare, these two philosophers’ views of philosophy to show that philosophy is a balance. Plato’s Symposium is a dialogue of speeches given by different orators on the topic of love. These discourses allow several views of philosophy to be expressed. These philosophical views relate and compliment the speaker’s view of love. Pausanias introduces two kinds of love: heavenly and common. In contrast to Eryximachus’ speech where “the
world, and in the world of Ayn Rand’s imagination, there are two kinds of people: those who live to create, and those who wish to live as parasites feeding off the benefits of those creations. In Atlas Shrugged, she explores what might happen when the creators of the world stop creating; the parasites are left to try to live on their own. The novels that Miss Rand writes always reflect this sort of thing. She writes of the battle between the two types of people as some write of the battles between good
"survival of the fittest" is well known, and sexual selection is a specified form of that principle. It "depends on the success of certain individuals over others of the same sex in relation to the propagation of the species" (Darwin, p. 638). There are two kinds of sexual struggle which take place between the same sex. In the one individuals, generally of the male sex, try to drive away or kill their rivals in order to win a partner, the females remaining passive. In the other individuals, again generally
James Fowler. Adlerian theory posits that "Our ideas about God are important indicators of how we view the world. According to Adler these ideas have changed over time, as our vision of the world—and our place in it—has changed" (Nielson). There are two kinds of changes that may occur: those that advance the faith, and those that incite doubt or stagnation, as reported by Paul Fritz. Fritz, a minister, incorporated the ideas of sociologist Jean Merton into his theory of faith evolution. Fowler, in Stages