She later realizes that all her mother wanted was for her to try and do her best. Her mother gives the piano to her for her thirtieth birthday, and she tries to play again. As shown above, Jing-mei realizes that she has the potential to be a genius, but she did not try when she was younger.
Suyuan forces Jing-Mei to practice her piano piece, with a deaf piano teacher, until it is absolutely perfect, and Jing-Mei loathes her mother for it. Since her teacher is deaf, Jing-Mei does not practice her piece and her teacher does not realize it. After she ruins her piece while playing at a talent show, her mother is mortified and does not let Jing-Mei watch television until her piece is actually perfect. Suyuan says that there are two kinds of daughters, “Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!
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.
In the book “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, it’s about a little girl who is pressured by her mother to become something she doesn’t want to be. Jing- mei , the daughter, is forced to become a prodigy(child actress), by her mother, and she doesn’t want to be one. In the story, Jing- meis’ mother uses allusions such as Shirley Temple to push her into becoming a prodigy. Although at first Jing- mei is excited to become a prodigy, she later realizes its something she just doesn’t enjoy doing. Consequently, the uses of allusion in the story help Jing- mei discover to not be a prodigy and that what her mother wants for her is not always important.
Regardless, her mother still is persistent on Jing Mei becoming a prodigy, despite her passionless performance and her family’s negative reaction. In return, Jing Mei becomes angry at her mother, and will do anything to change her mind. Screaming, “I wish I were dead! Like them.”, her mother freezes, disappointed in her daughter, and quits Jing Mei’s piano classes. On Page 28-29, Jing Mei’s perspective on the world becomes more apparent: “For unlike my mother, I didn’t believe I could be anything I wanted to be, I could only be me.”
American Horror Story: Lee Harris In the hit television show, American Horror Story, we will be discussing one of the main characters, Lee Harris. She had everything she wanted in her life; a perfect husband, daughter, and a high paying job as a police officer. Lee was even on track for a degree in criminal psychology, but a single day on the job changed her whole life. When arriving on call, she ended up taking a shot to her arm, causing tremendous pain and distress.
The characters in the book are shown to have real human psychology when put into stressful situations. Some emotions that are shown in the book is compassion, fear, paranoia, and overconfidence. The first emotion is compassion which the protagonist Amy gives to the Starlings who are unaware that they are in danger by the man in the black, even though Amy and Dan are competing against them they show compassion because it is a basic human survival technique to save your own species. Another emotion that we see in this book is fear, right after the bomb exploded Amy and Dan were picked up by their Au pair. During the car, Amy was explaining what happened but kept on stuttering.
She constantly fails at everything she attempts, which leads to Jing-mei showing a strong emotion of doubt. “For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be” (327). Jing-mei is no longer hopeful she can be a “prodigy” unlike her mother. She failed at becoming a ballerina, and her mother’s knowledge tests, which causes Jing-mei to no longer have high aspirations for herself, as any child who fails at many things continuously. Jing-mei notices she is not as smart as her mom wants her to be, nor any different from children her age.
When Jing Mei realizes her mother only wants a famous child to be able to brag, she decides to only be who she wants to be, and not follow her mother’s orders. During this time, Jing Mei is very sad, because she is being forced into being something by her parents. This negative effect can really make a child feel useless as who they
Throughout the story, Jing-mei’s feeling toward her mother change in critical ways. As a young child, Jing-mei wants constant attention from her mother, going so far as agreeing to become a child prodigy. In the story, Jing-mei commented, “In fact, in the beginning, I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so” (Tan 221). This was before her mother becomes highly adamant about wanting her child to become a prodigy. As time went on, she wanted Jing-mei to become the epitome of a child star.
“The ways in which the characters in Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A raisin in the sun, are affected by racial imbalances and respond to the injustices engendered by such inequities are solely influenced by their gender.” I agree with this statement to an extent. Although it is correct that gender plays a big role in this play, there are other factors to consider. Context:
The play “ A Raisin In The Sun “ wrote by Lorraine Hansberry is a inspiring play about the Younger family. A typical African American family in the late 1950’s trying to make life better for themselves. They’re a family trying to overcome the difficulties and obstacles that comes with being black in America in that time. Obstacles such as lynchings,segregation,racial discrimination and overall the difficulties that comes with being black in America. With external problems within the family the characters also internal conflicts within themselves.
In Lorraine Hansberry’s play,” A Raisin in the Sun” Beneatha Younger has great dreams for her future, but there are issues such as, race, education, and gender that stand in the way. Beneatha’s dreams of finding who she really is and becoming a doctor are affected by her gender in the play. Walter says to Beneatha,“I 'm interested in you. Something wrong with that?
Her mother eventually forgives her for what she said in their argument and offers to send her the piano as a birthday gift. After her mother's death, Jing-mei accepts the piano. While looking through her mother's things, Jing-mei finds sheet music of the song she practiced for a talent show when she was a child. She sits down at the piano and plays the song, realizing that it wasn't as difficult as she perceived it to be when she was young. She then realizes that the two sheets of music, titled "Pleading Child" and "Perfectly Contented," are two halves of the same song.
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.
