Gabrielle Tuckerson Ms. Ambrose English II; 1st Period 29 March 2023 The Burden of Expectations Parents sometimes have extreme expectations of their children. They think they know best and want the best for their children–but it doesn’t always work that way. In some families, the expectations parents have for their children are the reason their children rebel. In “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, the main character, Jing-mei has to face the expectations of becoming a prodigy that her mother is adamant about; the repeated disappointment her mother experiences causes Jing-mei to feel like her mother is sabotaging her and makes her rebel against her mother. In “Rice and Rose Bowl Blues” by Diane Mark, the speaker is forced to cook instead of playing …show more content…
An example of connotative diction is when “ . . . [her mother] conspired to have [her] play in a talent show” (Tan 227). It is clear Jing-mei’s mother is disinterested in her daughter's dreams; the use of the word “conspired” implies that her mother did this behind her back despite knowing she doesn’t want to do it. Demonstrated by imagery, the story shows how bad the relationship between Jing-mei and her mother was. Emphasizing her attitude, the narrator expresses how “[she] wedged herself more tightly in front of the TV” (Tan 230) to convey how she rebels by completely ignoring her mother and continuing to watch the TV. As Jing-mei’s mother is telling her that she has to go play piano, the reader can imagine how she gets more and more angry as her daughter disregards what she is saying. Finally, the narrator emphasizes to the reader how the relationship between Jing-mei and her mother deteriorates more and more as time …show more content…
Emphasized by the details in the poem, the rebellion in the speaker and how she does what she wants regardless of her mother is shown. Explaining her rebellion, the speaker discloses how “[she] secretly traced / an end run through / the grains in / between pourings'” (Mark 20-23). This shows how the speaker undermined her mother and watched the game when she was supposed to be cooking the rice; the rebellious behavior the speaker experiences is shown. Moreover, the connotative diction in the stanza helps the reader understand how the speaker feels about her mother's desire for her to cook instead of play football and how she completely ignores those desires. Highlighting her amusement, the speaker announces that [she] laughed loudly, / asking him / where / he’d heard / such a thing” (Mark 33-37). Readers learn how absurd the speaker thought that statement was through the use of the phrase “laughed loudly.” It helps the reader understand how the speaker is not going to let her mother demoralize her for being zealous about football. As a result of the use of details and connotative diction, the reader understands that the speaker disregards her mothers wishes and plays
Throughout her childhood life her mother, Suyuan, was continuously pushing her to be her best. Jing-Mei purposely tried to fail at everything to prover to her mother that she could never become a great and famous person. Then after a piano recital that went horridly wrong, her and her mother had an argument and their relationship was never the same. Many years later Suyuan tried to give Jing-mei the piano that she had as a child. She refused the offer, but than a year later her mother died and Jing-Mei was cleaning out her mother’s house and decided to play the piano and she was surprised that she still knew how.
In the story, the main food item is gravy, which is used as a trigger for the narrator to reminisce about their childhood. This connection is made because the narrator’s mother made especially good gravy. The fact that the mother made better gravy than anyone else is a use of pathos,
This quote emphasizes how much she is over exaggerating her performance. Imagery and Hyperbole gives the reader a good understanding of how Jing-mei felt about her
By showing how the kitchen table can be much more meaningful than just a piece of furniture. Also, while the poem focuses on the kitchen
After analyzing, Jing-mei in this part of the story is a child: eager to appease her mother and doing what she is told. However her mother’s strict expectations on her daughter causes her to be disappointed and frustrated at herself, causing her at one point to last out in the mirror in a mix of disorderly emotions such as anger, rage, sadness, frustration, and
Jing-mei had finally understood why her mother wanted her to be a prodigy so bad. After learning about her sisters and what happened to her mother in China. I know this because while JIng-mei ws looking through her old home after she passed she ran into her old piano and she had said “I opened up the Schumann book to the dark little piece I had played at the recital. It was on the left-hand side of the page, ‘Pleading Child’. It looked more difficult than I remembered.
(Tan19 ). The diction shows how upset Jing-Mei is for not being the Chinese-American daughter her mother had intended her to be in being able to perform or have great intelligence. She is thinks less of herself from the constant discouragement of being her true self. Another example of diction used is when Jing-Mei feels " It was not the only disappointment my mother felt in me. In the years that
Author Erica Funkhouser’s speaker, the child of the farm laborer, sets the tone in “My Father’s Lunch,” through their narrative recount of the lunch traditions set by their father preceding the end of a hard days worth of work. The lunch hour was a reward that the children anticipated; “for now he was ours” (14). The children are pleased by the felicity of the lunch, describing the “old meal / with the patina of a dream” (38-39) and describing their sensibilities as “provisional peace” (45). Overall, the tone of the poem is one of a positive element, reinforced by gratitude.
The short and brief sentences give no description and only state the food she is prepared. The passage would be descriptive if the occurrence is more appalling. Passage two is much shorter in length than passage 1 due to the lack of explanation. The sentence structure of passage two reveals the underlying attitude of resentment, gratefulness, and
If not for the perspective of Jing-Mei, the reader would not have known of her anger and frustration with her mother as well as the familial pressure present. In comparison, the narrator in Diaz’s story advises the reader on how to behave depending on the cultural and racial background of the girl they are dating. Diaz’s use of
One day, Jing-Mei’s family and Waverly’s family meet and both mothers brag about how their daughters are very successful. After seeing her mom brag about her non-existent talents, Jing-Mei is determined to stand in the way of her mother's ambitions. A few weeks later, Jing-Mei participates in a talent show at a church hall, although she hasn't practiced and does not know any of the music. Halfway through the song, she realizes how badly she’s playing. The weak applause and her parents’ look of disappointment revealed the indisputable truth: Jing-Mei is not a musical prodigy.
Tan portrays how children often disobey their parents by using details and figurative language. Disobedience often causes arguments between parents and children, and can cause harsh words between the two. “-and her face went blank, her mouth closed, her arms went slack, and she backed out of the room, stunned as if she were blowing away like a small brown leaf, thin, brittle, lifeless” (Tan 231). Tan uses details to reveal how these words impacted Jing-mei’s mother so much, and how
the readers and to justify the theme. Tan uses details to reveal how Jing-mei feels, “So now on nights when my mother presented her tests, I performed listlessly, my head propped on one arm. I pretended to be bored. And I was… And the next day, I played a game with myself, seeing if my mother would give up on me before eight bellows.
I can't play the piano. And even if I could, I wouldn't go on TV if you paid me a million dollars." (Tan 34). This piece highlights the tension between Jing-mei and her mother and the pressure that is placed on daughters to live up to their mothers' expectations. Furthermore, Tan uses the narrative technique of interweaving multiple stories to develop the theme of the mother-daughter relationship.
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.