An Analysis Of Jing-Tan's 'Two Kinds'

Most children struggle to establish who they are. In ‘Two Kinds’, does Jing-Mei know who she is or is she struggling because of her mother’s view? Throughout the entire story, her mother is pushing her daughter to be the best or to be a prodigy which leads Jing-Mei to struggle within herself on who she can be. As she struggled, she had two halves pulling at her which was her mother’s expectations and her thoughts telling her she wasn’t anything special. As she grew up, she accepted defeat that she was nothing yet she did struggle because she has potential to become anything she’d like.
In the beginning of the story, Jing-Mei entertains the idea of changing herself because of her age. She imagines the different personas because finally her
I didn’t become class president. I didn’t get into Stanford. I dropped out of college.” (Tan 327). She decided from early on she could never be capable so she set out to be exactly what she mother didn’t want. Later on, her mother gifted her the piano and told her she knew her daughter had natural talent. Jing-Mei knew she did too which leads to the thought that she truly did bury that side of her. When her mother died, she went to play the piano and started to play the song she did at the recital. Then she found another piece called ‘Perfectly Contented’ which matched the first piece, “Pleading Child was shorter but slower; Perfectly Contented was longer but faster. And after I had played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.” (Tan 328). This realization is what she’d been missing all these years. She’d been missing the two halves that completed who she was. She was no longer the pleading child that was angry because she wasn’t perfect or a genius. She finally was perfectly content with the natural talent she