Jing Mei Quotes

Is it okay to force your own child to do things they don’t want to do? Does it actually make them successful in life?

In Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds”, the main character, Jing-mei is being coerced by her mother to be a prodigy and be successful in life. Initially, Jing-mei, a naive child, eager to satisfy her mother’s ambitions, agrees. However, over the course of the story, she comes to realize that this is not who she is, as explained with Jing-mei meeting the rebellious side of her after viciously and aggressively lashing out at herself in the mirror due to her frustration and disappointment in herself, so she rebels against her by resisting her mother’s expectations and her ambitions. After slaughtering her mother’s spirit by saying she wishes

“Such a sad, ugly girl! I made high-pitched noises like a crazed animal, trying to scratch out the face in the mirror.”(Tan 223). This signifies that her mother is disappointed at her, causing her to be frustrated at herself. She then attacks herself in the mirror, making noises like a wild animal because of her mix of emotions such as anger, sadness, frustration, and disappointment in herself.

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

The speaker tells the reader her attempts to rebel against her mother’s ascribed beliefs, but is coerced into obeying her mother with the quote “I started out the door but was called back”(Mark 235), implying that she wants to play football, not wash rice.

Overall , both Tan and Mark emphasize a conflict between the speaker of “Rice and Rose Bowl Blues” and the narrator, being Jing-mei in “Two Kinds” rebelling against their respective parental figures: with Jing-mei forced to endure her mother’s high expectations of her and the speaker of “Rice and Rose Bowl Blues” rebelling against her mother because of traditional gender roles.

In other words, by using imagery, figurative language such as imagery and metaphors, and connotative diction, Amy Tan informs the reader more about her experiences growing up with a mother that places high expectations on her. In contrast, using football terminology like “runs” and the phrase “on our 20”, imagery, metaphors, and informal diction, Mark speaks to the reader about the day she was playing football with her siblings, only to be called by her mother who thought it was “time” for her daughter to learn her place as a woman, or in other words, learn how to wash