Compare And Contrast Rice And Rose Bowl Blues

Compulsion at its Finest

Do you ever do what you want instead of doing what your parents think is best for you? Many teenagers admit to feeling this way. The two engaging texts, “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan and “Rice and Rose Bowl Blues” by Diane Mei Lin Mark have a very similar theme. “Two Kinds” is about a young girl named Jing-mei who struggles to form her sense of identity in the face of her strong-willed, zealous mother’s dream that she will become a prodigy. While “Rice and Rose Bowl Blues” is about a young girl who daydreams about the days she used to play football with her brothers and neighbors until she gets called into her house by her mother to learn how to take on the role of a real woman and learn how to cook rice. . Using imagery,

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. After a while I usually counted only one, maybe two bellows at most. At last she was beginning to give up hope” (Tan 223). While Jing-mei's mother is testing her knowledge, the way she is responding to it will help the readers to realize that she's sabotaging herself later on. Another example can be proven by using imagery: “I looked at my reflection, blinking so I could see more clearly. The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful. This girl and I were the same. I had new thoughts, willful thoughts, or rather thoughts filled with lots of won’ts. I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I’m not” (Tan 223). This quote relates back to the theme because it manifests how Jing-mei will not let the pressure her mother is putting on her shoulders get the best of her. Clearly, the imagery and details help the reader understand Jing-mei’s intense emotions as she comes to grips with her frustration at not being able to please her