Unmended bonds From the beginning of time, parents and their children have clashed over the child's desire to be unique and independent; which creates conflict with the adults who care for him or her. In the short story “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, a Chinese mother and her American raised daughter began to clash as the daughter gets older and begins to feel unable to achieve the expectations of her mother. Jing-mei’s mother strongly believes her daughter is a prodigy. Jing-mei, over time, begins to disagree. After being tested for years in difficult and unrealistic tasks, Jing-mei begins to resent her mother for the things her mother does. After a careful analysis of the story, the reader understands how Jing-mei’s feelings towards her mother changed, why her feelings changed, and how those changed feelings affected the entire story. …show more content…
Jing-mei claims, “In fact, in the beginning, I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so” (Tan, 221). As a young girl, Jing-mei enjoyed the thought of one day being famous. To Jing-mei this was all for fun, it was a game, it was a fashion show, and it was a fantasy. In the eyes of herself and her parents, Jing-mei was on the verge of becoming perfect. The narrator reveals this when she states,” I was filled with a sense that I would soon become perfect. My mother and father would adore me, I would soon be beyond reproach” (Tan, 221). She is imagining a life where she is a star, and she is perfect, but little does she know these things that she wants only come with work. Jing-mei does not know what is yet to come, she does not understand that she will soon face constant failure in her mother's