The Average Comparison

Nancy Arroyo Ruffin once said, “the best thing parents can do for their children is allow them to be who they were born to be.” In both Amy Tan’s Two Kinds and W.H. Auden’s The Average, the protagonist’s parents work for their children to lead great lives, which the children in turn reject because they see themselves as average; however in Two Kinds the protagonist’s negative self-image comes from a desire to spite her mother, whereas in The Average it stems from the protagonist’s aspiration for an ordinary life. In both works the protagonist’s parents come from a life of hardship and work extremely hard for their children to be able to achieve greatness. In Two Kinds the protagonist’s mother comes from China and “[believes] you [can] be anything
you [want] to be in America,” (Tan). She leaves her life in China after losing “her mother and her father, her home, her first husband, and two daughters,” (Tan) and moves to San Francisco to give her daughter a chance to become a “prodigy.” These hardships which she experiences are all for her daughter to have the opportunity to become successful in America, and become “instantly famous.” Furthermore, similar to how the protagonist’s parents in Two Kinds suffer through difficulties for their child to become successful, in The Average, the main character’s parents labour for their son. As the poem states, “His peasant parents killed themselves with toil / To let their darling leave a stingy soil,” (Auden). This shows the hardships the protagonist’s parents endure for their child. They want him to leave the farmlands that they are pinned to, and for him to become great, away from the countryside. Overall, in both the short story and the poem, the protagonist’s parents toiled for their children to leave their lives of mediocrity and to achieve greatness. Next, despite the parents working hard for their children, in both Two Kinds and The Average the children reject their parents’ desires.
In Two Kinds, the protagonist’s mother is determined to make her daughter a “prodigy,” however her daughter does not want this because she believes she is too average and not worthy of becoming famous. The protagonist’s denial of her parents wishes becomes evident when she states that she “[hates] the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations.” Additionally, her self-view is shown to the reader when she “[looks] in the mirror above the bathroom sink, and [sees] only [her] ugly face staring back.” She says that this is when she “[understands] that it would always be this ordinary face,” and she thinks of herself as “such a sad, ugly girl.” This shows how her rejection of a life of fame and greatness is directly caused by her negative self view. Likewise, in The Average the protagonist also rejects his parents’ desires for a life of greatness far away form the difficult farms where he is raised. The protagonist’s parents believe that “no sensible career [is] good enough” for their son. Nonetheless, he still thinks that “only a hero could deserve such love.” This shows how he does not believe he deserves the love and labour of his parents. Moreover, his desertion of his parents’ dreams are shown when the protagonist “[sees] the shadow of an Average Man / Attempting the exceptional, and [runs].” This demonstrates how he thinks of himself
as an average person attempting to be more, which he does not believe he can ever achieve, and he abandons his chance of greatness for the life he has always wanted. In these two works, the protagonists reject their parents’ hard work because they think of themselves as average, rather than exceptional. Despite the main characters in both Two Kinds and The Average seeing themselves as ordinary, their self-views stem from different places.
In Two Kinds the protagonist believes that she is average and not deserving of a prodigal life out of spite for her mother. A large component of the protagonist’s rejection of her mother’s wishes comes after her decision that she is not good enough to become a mastermind. The protagonist vows to herself that she “will not let her [mother] change [her] ... [she] won’t be what [she is] not.” Furthermore, when the protagonist discovers that her mother traded housecleaning services for her daughter to have piano lessons, she says that she “felt as though [she] had been sent to hell” because of the lengths her mother goes to in attempts to achieve something her daughter does not want, which leads to the protagonist’s spite for her mother. In addition, she illustrates that her negative self-image stems from spite for her mother when she yells at her mother and says, “You want me to be something that I’m not! I’ll never be the kind of daughter that you want me to be!” This shows that her mother’s raised expectations cause her to see herself in an extremely negative light, and deliberately not want to become a prodigy since she does not want her mother to get her way. Similarly, the protagonist in The Average also thinks he deserves a mediocre life. However, he believes that a life of mediocrity is the life he deserves because all he wishes for
is to be average and to live an ordinary life. In the poem he says, “the desert glared into his bloodshot eyes,” which symbolizes how exhausted and unhappy he is with the life his parents chose for him. Additionally, it says, “the silence roared with displeasure: looking down / He saw the shadow of an Average Man.” This shows how displeased he is in his not-so-average life, and how deeply he desires to be ordinary, as opposed to the life that his parents wanted for him. Overall, a major difference between these two works is the origin of the protagonist’s self-images. In Amy Tan’s Two Kinds and W.H. Auden’s The Average, both of the protagonist’s parents work extremely hard for their children to succeed in life. The children, in turn, reject their parents’ hopes for greatness because they see themselves as average. However, in Two Kinds, the protagonist’s self-view stems from a desire to spite her mother, whereas in The Average it comes from the protagonist’s desire for a mediocre life. Often, parent’s desires vary from what their children want, which frequently leads children to rebel. This can be caused from children feeling as if their parents want more for them than they deserve or can handle, leading to many conflicts. Overall, the two works have many similarities, yet they also have an integral difference.