'Two Kinds, Melting Pot, And Theme For English B'

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Do you sometimes feel expected to be someone else? Well, don’t. Everyone is an individual person and we should all be proud of our differences. The three texts “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, “Melting Pot” by Anna Quindlen, and “Theme for English B” by Langston Hughes all explain in different ways how being yourself is essential to success. “Two Kinds” is about a mother who wants her daughter to succeed in life and how their relationship changes through the various events in the story. “Melting Pot” is an essay about the diverse residents of Anna Quindlen’s neighborhood and how they interact with each other. “Theme for English B” is a poem that discusses everyone’s similarities and differences. The theme “be yourself” is strongly represented in the …show more content…

In one part of the story the narrator’s mother kept pushing her daughter to practice doing all kinds of things because she wanted her to succeed in life but the daughter doesn’t know that her mother has good intentions. In the text is says “In all of 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 the need to sulk for anything” (Tan). This is a good example of the theme because the narrator is saying that she thought she would one day become a prodigy instead of being herself because no one is perfect. In another part of the story the narrator was getting frustrated that she wasn’t living up to her mother’s expectations and was starting to give up. The text says, “Before going to bed that night, I looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink and when I saw only my face staring back- and that it would always be this ordinary face- I began to cry” (Tan). This piece of evidence also demonstrates the theme because the narrator is believing less and less in herself since she wasn’t becoming famous or amazingly talented. She thinks that she’ll never be able …show more content…

The poem is about an assignment from his English B class where he has to write a page about himself that is “true”- but he isn’t sure what is true for himself and people in general. In the poem it says “Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life. I like a pipe for a Christmas present, or records-Bessie, bop, or Bach. I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like the same things other folks like who are other races” (Hughes). The author is saying that inside everyone is similar despite their exterior differences and that being yourself is a good thing. In the poem the author is describing himself as kind of the definition of most people- all of us do and like similar things despite not being the exact same

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