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Becoming An Allegory In Two Kinds By Amy Tan

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Growing up with Parents who have high expectations for you can be difficult. Anything other than excellence could be seen as a disappointment to them. Situations like these could make people feel victimized. In the short story “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, the main character, Jing-Mei, acts like this all throughout the story. Her Mother is constantly pressuring her to become a prodigy of some sort, this drives her to work hard to not become a prodigy. Throughout the story, many of the things that are mentioned are used as symbols to build an allegory. Amy Tan’s intention is to teach the audience that there are multiple sides to a story, and the perspective you take could be influenced by the level of maturity you possess. Tan’s use of symbolism helps create this message. …show more content…

The piano represents the struggle between mother and daughter, who cannot come to an agreement on anything. The Mother is determined to make her daughter become a prodigy, whilst Jing-Mei couldn’t care less about it. “[She’s] not a genius! [She] can't play the piano. And even if [she] could, [she] wouldn't go on TV if you paid [her] a million dollars!" (3). Jing-Mei feels that the only reason her Mother wants her to become a prodigy is so that she can benefit from this. What she doesn’t pay attention to is that all her Mother wants is for her to be the best at something. She wants Jing-Mei to become someone in life. However, Jing-Mei refuses to understand

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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.

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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. One of the difficulties between Jing-Mei and her mother is their different cultural backgrounds, which is supported by two points from the story. Firstly, Jing-Mei and her mother both disagreed on the opportunities that existed in America. According to Singer, Amy Tan uses “two entirely

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In Eve Bunting’s children’s book “Terrible Things” the story uses an allegory to display animals as different groups like Jews, Queers, Jehova Witnesses, etc. The short story is based off of the behaviors of these groups and how they acted towards each other during the Holocaust. Standing by while their peers, fellow citizens were being taken to camps or killed. Because of this behavior, many of the citizens didn’t have anyone when it was their time to be killed or taken, like in the ending of the short story. In the infographic “Anne Frank House” it talks about the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party.

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" Who ask you to be genius?" she shouted.” Jing-Mei probably feels hurt at this point. If mama and Jing-Mei had better communication it probably wouldn’t of escalated to that point.

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In (paragraph 2) of Two Kinds it states, “Of course, you can be a prodigy, too, my mother told me when I was nine.” This shows that her mom’s culture from China only want’s to have prodigy’s . Another piece of evidence is on (paragraph 4) it states, “ We didn’t immediately pick the right kind of prodigy. At first my mother thought I could be a Chinesen Shirley Temple.” This is showing that JIng-mei’s

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After that failed, the Mother suggested that Jing-Mei work towards developing into a skilled pianist. She bought her a piano and hired Mr. Chong, an old deaf piano teacher, to help her learn it. Jing-Mei understood how to play multiple songs after about a year of piano lessons, and her mother entered her into a talent show. At the talent show, Jing-Mei miserably failed. The next day, Jing-Mei and her mother get into a big argument where Jing-Mei declares, “I wish I weren’t your daughter…I wish I were dead!

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High expectations from parents can make their kids feel pressured to give up, fail , or it can make them feel motivated. In The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan and Friday Night Lights by Bissinger, Jing Mei and Mike feel pressured that they have to live up to their parents high expectations. While Jing-Mei takes the pressure badly and feels that she has to give up, Mike feels motivated to live up to his dad's high expectations. In the chapter“Two Kinds” in The Joy Luck Club, Jing Mei has high expectations from her mother to be a child prodigy. “Every night after dinner my mother and I would sit at the Formica kitchen table.

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after seeing her mothers disappointed, again and again , jing-mei decides never to cooperate with her mother's experiments. Jing-mei mother still hasn’t given up hope so she decides that Jing-mei will be a piano virtuoso. Due to jing-mei resolve, she never takes the piano lessons seriously. After a while Jing-mei was conspired

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Jing Mei is signed up to perform at a local talent show in front of her family, despite having no interest in playing the piano. Her performance of a piece ironically titled “Pleading Child”, as expected, doesn’t go well, which only makes Jing Mei and her mom’s perspectives of each other more negative. Ultimately fueled with hatred on Page 27-28, Jing Mei has a meltdown, thinking to herself, “My true self had finally emerged. So this was what had been inside of me all along.” Feeling both pressured and embarrassed by her family, especially her mom, Jing Mei, musically, feels powerless, and all of her might to be a prodigy disappears after her performance.

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The short story “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan explains a mother and daughter relationship that has many differences within a conflict in the story. The narrator demonstrates that the mother and the daughter do not agree with the same aspect on life. Since the mother wants her daughter to be perfect, the daughter refuses to make her mother’s wishes come true. Her mother wanted the narrator to become the perfect traditional daughter, but the narrator’s differences triggered with her mother. An indication from the story is, “Unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be, I could only be me” (137).

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Jing-mei matures and struggles with high expectations of her mother. She sees and realize that her mother wants her to become a prodigy and a talented child, famous, and an obedient daughter. Jing-mei learns from her mother and disobeys her, and tries to find ways to stop her mother’s foolishness. Suyuan Woo first believed that her daughter can become a prodigy and a talented child. She has high standards and believes that living in

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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.

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“Two Kinds” by Amy Tan is a story that shows a battle that starts with the narrator and her mother, for control over the narrator’s life. Her mother wanted her to become a prodigy, but she wanted to be anything other than that. So, throughout the short story “Two Kinds” she’s determined to not quit the fight. “Two Kinds” is filled with different forms of conflict which allows for the narrator to realize that her mother’s crazy antics were to help her find what she was good at. The narrator conquers the twoness in her life after 18 years by using the conflicts of her past, and it leads to her growth in maturity and her development of a writer.

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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.

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