Two Kinds By Amy Tan Visual Analysis

Growing up is a hard time, and for the three most important characters in the short stories, “Two Kinds,” “The Bass, the River, and Sheila Mant,” and “Fish Cheeks” it certainly is no different. It makes them feel unacknowledged when all they want is just independence and acceptance of the ones that they find to be important to them. Acceptance is something every person wants to gain from everyone, it just is not something focused on commonly.

The relationship between a mother and a daughter holds a special bond of love and care. While mothers truly care for their daughters, this act of devotion can lead to conflicts. The strength of their bond is the determining factor in overcoming and being able to tolerate periods of disagreement. The excerpts in Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club both display the reality of mother-daughter relationships. The attachment and deep affection that the mothers give to their daughters provoke arguments between the two. While Chua gives off a tone of irritation to express her relationship with her daughter, Tan displays a more harsh, resentful tone.

For all Jing-mei’s life, she has never understood her own mother. The Aunties were in shock to hear Jing-mei so unaware of her mother as a person along with her wish. Suyuan’s wish was one step closer to finally meeting up with her two daughters she abandoned. Jing-mei replies how she does not know what to tell her two sisters about their mother. The Aunties are uneasy by Jing-mei's statement “‘Not know your own mother?’ cries Auntie An-mei with disbelief. ‘How can you say? Your mother is in your bones!’” (Tan 16). Jing-mei little by little understands her mother's ways after her passing. Jing-mei and her father travel to her mother’s homeland to comprehend what her mother endured “She must not only hear her mother's words, and later, her father's, but also she must see the landscape that those words, or mini poems, interpret in order for her to discover her own individual place” (Wood 13). Once Jing-mei was with her sisters, her character grew or the better. In the end, Jing-mei finally understood and knew how Suyuan was in her

This is the classic story between parent and child in Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds.” The theme of this story revolves around a mother who wants nothing but the best for her daughter. Mrs. Woo, the mother of Jing-mei, is a struggling immigrant who had lost everything in China and believes in the American dream by stating, "My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America” (639). She puts Jing-mei into various activities to figure out what she could be good at. The universal theme is conflict between a mother’s desire for her daughter to achieve greatness and a daughter’s personal yearning to find out who she is.

The story “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan explores the deep familial emotions between a mother and her daughter. Jing-Mei’s mother had left China to come to America after losing her family, and had been raising Jing-Mei in America with her second husband. Despite her mother’s grand hopes for Jing-Mei to become successful in America by becoming a child prodigy, Jing-Mei did not share the same opinions. This disagreement quickly became a source of resentment and anger for both of them, but Jing-Mei and her mother were unable to resolve this conflict because of their different backgrounds and experiences. The story showcases how relationships between mothers and daughters can be strained because of differences in culture and a lack of communication.

Jing-Mei then decides to reunite with her sisters in China, anxiously stating, “I lay awake thinking about my mother’s story, realizing how much I have never known about her, grieving that my sisters and I had both lost her“ (271). At this point in the story, it becomes evident Jing-Mei no longer despises her mother for her distasteful tendencies. Instead, she aspires to see her mother one last time. Remorseful of her incapacity to connect with her mother on a deeper level, Jing-Mei feels inept to fill in for her mother at the mahjong table. Michelle Gaffner also notes the tension put on relationships due to cultural indifferences in her article “Negotiating the Geography of Mother-Daughter Relationships in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club” when she writes, “The mother-daughter relationships in both China and the United States represented in The Joy Luck Club not only provide a link between the past and the present but also suggest how the ability, or the inability, for mothers and daughters to share geographically informed cultural stories influences both mother-daughter relationships and individual and cultural identity” (83). The

One allusion in “Two kinds” and modern day society is Shirley Temple. She gives the mom the idea of making Jing-Mei a prodigy. She was known for singing and dancing. Jing-Mei says,” At first my mother thought I could be a Chinese Shirley Temple” (Tan 70). Her mother thinks she can be just like Shirley Temple except a chines version. She wants Jing-Mei to be able to sing and dance but that is not what Jing-Mei wants. Heaven and Tianne King, they are dancers. Heaven was found on You-tube by Ellen Degeneres at the age of three. Heaven loves Beyonce and that is who she dances to most of the time. Both her and her mom want her to be a prodigy of Beyonce. Both of their parents want them to become a prodigy of somebody. Jing-Mei’s mom wants her to be a prodigy of Shirley Temple.

In conclusion, “ Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, was about Jing-mei and finding herself, even without her mothers help. Shirley Temple and Peter Pan were good moments in the story, but helped discover that just because they were happy moments, doesn’t mean that’s all a prodigy does. Jing –mei thought all the stuff her mom did help her, but it didn’t. It made her think about herself and her life. This is how Two Kinds of allusion affected Jing

"Two Kinds" by Amy Tan is a complex representation of an unsteady mother-daughter relationship. The focal point of the story is oftentimes troublesome yet inescapable and uncovers clashing values. The relationship between Jing-mei and her mother stretches throughout the story. Conflict rises as opposite standpoints in connection with identification surface. Living in America as a Chinese immigrant, Jing-mei 's mother plants her dreams of American success on the shoulders of her daughter. On the other hand, being born into this country, Jing-mei is against wanting to live up to the expectations her mother sets on her. Two kinds reveal two different sides of the cultural spectrum, and their opposing view towards their values. Jing-mei 's mother felt like an outcast existing in a dominate population. Grasping the same idea, she held onto her hard time back in her home. Jing-mei is her last hope to prove that her homeland can be just as talented as Americans. To follow through with this objective, her mother bends over backwards in search of the "right" kind of prodigy for her daughter. Although Jing-mei determinedly upsets her mother 's desires to make her a prodigy, it was as if it were decades afterwards in life that she picks up the understanding into her mother 's basic motives. This exposition will endeavor that "Two Kinds" is a compelling story to bring to light on the issues of identity.

Mother knows best. And yet so many daughters in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club feel slighted by what the matriarchal figures in their lives have in mind for them, or rather, what they believe their mothers have in mind for them. A perfect storm of expectation, true and false, about love, about success, about being Chinese. The souring of mother-daughter relationships in The Joy Luck Club stem from unrealistic or ill conceived expectations that both parties hold for the other.

“Two Kinds” a short story out of Amy Tan’s book “The Joy Luck Club” is a representation of the pressures immigrant children face from their parents. In the story, we follow a young girl named Jing-Mei as she embarks down the road to becoming a Prodigy. Her mother believed that “you could be anything you wanted to be in America” (Tan). For Jing-Mei that meant her mother believed she could become instantly famous. “Of course, you can be a prodigy, too”, her mother told her (Tan). For a nine-year-old who wants nothing more than to make her mother proud this was exciting. In the beginning, we can see her excitement and desire, “in the beginning I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so.” (Tan). However, as we follow the story we see her excitement quickly fade to sorrow and anger. The high expectations immigrant families place on their children is still a very relevant social issue and can be witnessed throughout the United States. In this short story, we witness how a parent’s good intentions can ultimately lead to the destruction of their child’s motivation.

In 1948, one of America’s greatest artist of the 20th century, Andrew Wyeth illustrated the painting Christina’s World. This artist often created paintings that related to personal or general real life issues. The young woman in the painting happened to be a good friend and neighbor to Wyeth. His paintings often depicted the sorrow and despair of life, just like Chirstina’s. In the 18th century, another one of the greatest artist of all time, Vincent Van Gogh illustrated a very personal painting. The Starry Night is now one of the most widely known paintings in the world, but the story and meaning is not. Both artist used dark and grim themes when it came to their creations, and that is what draws the public to them. In today 's society we are able to relate to the deeper and more mentally touching symbols of these pieces of art.

Jing Mei, while portrayed as an obedient child, is only willing to listen to her mother to a certain extent. Throughout the story, it is consistently hinted that Jing Mei would eventually explode against her mother as an attempt to free herself from her mother’s chains. In addition, after the fiasco at the piano recital, she eventually derives further from her mother’s wishes as she “didn 't get straight A...didn 't become class president...didn 't get into Stanford...dropped out of college.” (54). On the flip side, Jing Mei’s mother is a stereotypical Chinese parent who is fully determined to ensure her daughter’s success in a new environment. However, this determination sometimes appears to be obsessive to the point of running her daughter’s life for her. Regardless, she is only trying to help, as she encourages Jing Mei by asserting “‘You can be best anything.’” (1). Because of this, it suggests that although she is very harsh on her daughter at times, it is only to make sure that Jing Mei can use her full potential and not end up losing everything like her

In her novel, The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan focuses on the fact that the bond between a mother and daughter can overcome any ethnic barrier. Despite there being many disagreements and arguments about the ways to live their lives, Tan defies this issue by creating a bond that is unbreakable even though the experienced different upbringings. Certain disagreements keep the novel interesting and create a conflict depicting the problems stemming from this barrier. Through her use of similes, metaphors, and flashbacks, Tan shows how the bond between a mother and daughter can withstand even the strongest cultural differences.

Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School, has created an article called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother that intensively describes differences in the usage of parenting methods in Chinese and Westerners culture. The author has personally raised her children in a highly strict manner so her children succeed in life and academics. Chua often refers to the term “Chinese mother” that describes her parenting style apart from Western parents. The main purpose of this article is to show the two parenting techniques and how they affect the child 's success. Amy Chua’s intense Chinese mother style is extremely hard on children.