Jing-mei’s story also deals with a clash between a mother’s faith and belief in persistence versus a daughter’s inner sense of futility. Jing-mei believes that she is simply not “fated” to be a prodigy‚ that ultimately there resides within her an unchangeable element of mediocrity. When she tells her reflection in the mirror one night that she will not allow her mother to change her‚ that she will not try to be what she is not‚ she asserts her will in a strong but negative manner. At that moment
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Composition & Literature | Amy Tan | Professor Blum | JAEL VARGAS 12/17/2012 | This story’s main events take place in Chinatown throughout the 1950s and perhaps early 1960s. The main character of the story‚ who is also the protagonist‚ is the author herself: Amy Tan. The antagonist happens to be her own mother‚ who is always pushing Amy to discover some hidden talent and be someone she is not. There are a few other minor characters in the story. There is Lindo Jong (who she calls
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The author‚ Amy Tan is a second generation Chinese immigrant. Her parents are both Chinese immigrants. Her father and one of her brothers passed away during her early teens. At that period‚ she found out that her mother had been married before in China. She left her divorced ex-husband and three daughters in China. In 1987‚ after her mother recovered from a serious illness‚ they took a trip to China where Tan reunited with her half-sisters. The trip offered Tan a new perspective on her mother and
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Not My Dream In the story “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan‚ we are shown the struggles of a young girl Jing-Mei. Her struggle is that of a young girl growing up and trying to find her own sense of identity. Her troubles are compounded by her mother‚ who convinces her that she can become someone important. Because of her mother’s constant overbearing behavior‚ Jing-Mei does everything she can to annoy and displease her mother even to the point of being a failure. This fight to find
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Two Kinds by Amy Tan A: Synopsis This short story‚ ‘Two Kinds’ is more focused on the relationships between mother and daughter. The narrator of this story‚ Jing Mei recalls of the days when her mother wanted her to be a prodigy in America. Her mother moved to San Francisco when she lost everything in China. At first‚ she thought that her daughter would be like Shirley Temple as they watched how talented Shirley Temple was in acting. And one day when the narrator’s mother saw a young Chinese girl
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"Two Kinds" The story "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan represents the theme that parents cannot control their children‚ but can only guide them. A Chinese mother and daughter Ni Kan are at odds with each other in story. The mother pushes her daughter to become a prodigy of some sort‚ her daughter does try to follow her mother ’s orders but has she gets older she realizes she wants to find her own self and not to be what her mother wants her to be. They both have conflicting values‚ which is the theme of the
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Not My Dream In the story "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan‚ we are shown the struggles of a young girl Jing-Mei. Her struggle is that of a young girl growing up and trying to find her own sense of identity. Her troubles are compounded by her mother‚ who convinces her that she can become someone important. Because of her mother’s constant overbearing behavior‚ Jing-Mei does everything she can to annoy and displease her mother even to the point of being a failure. This fight to find her own identity against
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Patricia Rosario English 126 AB1 Professor Milanes November 24‚ 2014 Formal Paper #3 draft Pressure for Success Children of immigrant parents are put under immense pressure to succeed in life. Success is expected in these children as a form of reward to their parents for their many physical and financial sacrifices. Because of these expectations‚ children begin to feel as disappointments and failures if they have not met the high goals set by their parents. Putting high standards and limitations
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Amy Tan writes as many hidden things as the number of her story in Two Kinds. As its complex structure suggests‚ the book tries to organize the the stories of mother and daughter with the intention of reaching the same destination: the daughter’s recovery of her cultural and ethnic identity as Chinese by overcoming the generational gap and the cultural differences between herself and her mother. The mother intend to hand over their "good intentions" and "usable past" in China to their daughter in
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Josh A. Robertson Prof. Villarreal 1302 4/8/13 Paper 3 “Two Kinds” Amy Tan In Amy Tan’s short story “Two Kinds” Jing-Mei‚ the story’s main character‚ takes a stand against her mother. The story opens as she describes her childhood‚ which was full of pain and resentment caused by never becoming the “prodigy” that her mother desperately wanted her to be. Despite her best intentions‚ Jing-Mei always fell short of her mother’s expectations and one night‚ she made a pact to herself that she would
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