What are the difficulties of being in two cultures and when your mother tries to change you or when you’re being used? These challenges can be seen in Amy Tan's short stories "Two Kinds" and "Rules of the Game." Both of the main characters are young Chinese American girls that have a hard time with their mothers and struggle with a clash of culture. Also both of their mother’s sacrifice for them to make sure they have a better future for their daughter. In "Rules of the Game" Waverly is a chess prodigy who feels like her mother is using her and gets agitated when her mother brags about her. In "Two Kinds" June who is forced to play the piano by her mother and trying to change her into something else. The character's struggles through their action and words reveals that both the characters are rebellious, have difficult time with their mother, and struggle with being in clash of two different cultures. …show more content…
Waverly gets angry that her mother is showing her off like a trophy and used her, while June's mother tried to make her into something she is not. Waverly and June are alike because they both argued with their mothers, but for different reasons. In the short story,” Waverly had enough of her mother showing her off and using her. For example, she exclaimed, "I wish you wouldn't do that, telling everybody I'm your daughter." My mother stopped walking.” (5). Waverly disliked On the other hand, June argued with her mother because she didn't want to play the piano but her mother made her. June said “Then I wish I weren’t your daughter, I wish you weren’t my mother” (8). It showed how angry June was at her mother. June was very angry at her mother which lead to her failure at
Waverly is tired of her mother telling everyone about her accomplishment, that she lost her patients and tell her mother want were exactly on her mind. The dynamics relationship between mother and daughter is that you sometime lost your temper and tell your mother some of the problems you having with them.
The definition of an underachiever as stated by Webster is “one (such as a student) that fails to attain a predicted level of achievement or does not do as well as expected.” In the short story “Two Kinds” written by Amy Tan, Ni’Kan is the queen of underachievers. She determines at a young age to become defiant to her mom. After experiencing disappointment from letting her mom down, Ni’Kan determined that she would not become a child prodigy and intentionally failed throughout her life.
In the short story, "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, a Chinese mother and daughter are at odds with each other. The mother pushes her daughter to become a prodigy, while the daughter (like most children with immigrant parents) seeks to find herself in a world that demands her Americanization. This is the theme of the story, conflicting values. In a society that values individuality, the daughter sought to be an individual, while her mother demanded she do what was suggested. This is a conflict within itself. The daughter must deal with an internal and external conflict. Internally, she struggles to find herself. Externally, she struggles with the burden of failing to meet her mother’s expectations. Being a first-generation Asian American,
In her short story "Two Kinds," Amy Tan utilizes the daughter's point of view to share a mother's attempts to control her daughter's hopes and dreams, providing a further understanding of how their relationship sours. The daughter has grown into a young woman and is telling the story of her coming of age in a family that had emigrated from China. In particular, she tells that her mother's attempted parental guidance was dominated by foolish hopes and dreams. This double perspective allows both the naivety of a young girl trying to identify herself and the hindsight and judgment of a mature woman.
“Two Kinds” is a short story written by Amy Tan about a young girl attempting to please her mother, but also cultivate her own identity. Ironically, (or most likely intentionally), there seem to be two different types of themes driving the text: the cultural differences between an immigrant and a natural born citizen of America, and a mother and daughter. The mother is an immigrant from China that believes in the American dream; she believes that anyone can make it in American with enough hard work and practice. However, her daughter was raised in American and does not have the same ideology as her mother. Instead, she believes that people should have their own identity and thoughts, rather than trying to be like someone else or impress other people. Her mother refuses to think in such a way, and instead attempts to make the daughter into a child prodigy. Unfortunately, the daughter gives up trying to please her mother, and instead begins to live her own life, to the disappoint of her mother.
The mother in “Two Kinds”, is culturally accustomed to raising a child to be obedient and expects her daughter to bare her extreme parenting measures. With the daughter’s mother coming from China she
However, the conflict between Waverly and her mother is very realistic, due to the nature that many mothers and daughters have different views which causes disagreements. The people of Chinese descent have their Chinese heritage, but struggle to keep true to their traditions while living around American culture. The major conflict in the story, the clash of different cultures, leads to the weakening of the relationship between the two characters. For example, when Waverly reenters the apartment after running away, she sees the "remains of a large fish, its fleshy head still connected to bones swimming upstream in vain escape" (Tan 508). Waverly sees herself as the fish, stripped clean by her mother 's power, unable to break free. Through the major conflict, the characters struggle to keep their relationship healthy and loving. Tan explains the feelings of Waverly through an important symbolic imaginary chess game as she writes, “My white pieces screamed as they scurried and fell off the board one by one. As her men drew closer to my edge, I felt myself growing light” (508). This shows how Waverly feels about the relationship with her mother and how she is losing the battle. The conflicts are important, especially to the theme, for the conflicts shows where the lack of understanding comes from and how it can be resolved.
In the article,” Why Chinese Mothers are Superior," author Amy Chua describes how parenting is approached in Chinese culture as compared to "Western parents." She compares Western and Chinese parents on how they approach their children’s' upbringings. She gives examples from her experiences raising her own daughters. Chua's daughters were not allowed to attend sleepovers and could not score grades any lower than an "A" in school classes. Chua also forced her kids in learning a piece for the piano. In separate story, author Amy Tan discusses the mother-daughter relationship in Chinese-American culture in "Two Kinds." This story is told from the viewpoint of an American-born Chinese girl named Jing-mei. Her immigrant mother, Mrs. Woo, believes that being in America is freedom and wants her daughter to take advantage of that freedom. Her mother has her try several activities in an attempt to
Over time, she learns just how to manipulate her to get what she wants. One example of this is seen when Waverly wants to attend at chess tournament that her mother would never agree to. “I desperately wanted to go, but i bit back my tongue. I knew she would not let me play among strangers.” (Tan 9) By initiating what would appear to others as small talk, she redirects her mother's strong will. “As we walked home I said in a small voice that I didn't want to play in the local tournament. They would have American rules. If I lost, I would bring shame on my family.” (Tan 9) This shows she is not afraid of deceiving her mother when the outcome is worth the
The physical and social settings portrayed in Amy Tan’s “The Rules of the Game” enables the story to emerge as more than the birth of a child prodigy. Thus they make the story more profound.
"Two Kinds" by Amy Tan is about the intricacies and complexities in the relationship between a mother and daughter. Throughout the story, the mother imposes upon her daughter, Jing Mei, her hopes and dreams for her. Jing Mei chooses not what her mother wants of her but only what she wants for herself. She states, "For, unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could be only me" (Tan 1). Thus this "battle of wills" between mother and daughter sets the conflict of the story.
In the story Two Kinds by Amy Tan it tells the tale of conflict between a mother Suyuan and her daughter Jing-mei over piano lessons. Two Kinds deals with a clash between a mother’s belief of hard work and persistance and a daughter's belief that being a prodigy is unachievable. Amy Tan shows generational differences among immigrant families negotiating the mythology of the American Dream.
In the short story Two Kinds by Amy Tan, she writes about a child named Jing-mei and her experiences with her mother pushing her to become a prodigy, all while her mother deals with being a Chinese immigrant that just moved to the United States. The two countries obviously share very different cultures and this plays a part in the story as she pushes Jing-mei to live ‘The American Dream’. Her mother strongly believes that in America you can be whatever you want to be. This, to some, may not be true, however this idea is strongly pushed in the Chinese culture. This is shown when Jing-mei fails to do any prodigious task that her mother puts in front of her which leads to her mother being ultimately disappointed in Jing-mei. Her failures ends up causing a huge argument between Jing-mei and her mother. The argument could be called the climax of the story. This confrontation wouldn’t have happened if Jing-mei’s mother didn’t have the huge idea that The American Dream is a legitimate thing, and Jing-mei’s mother wouldn’t have that perception of America if the Chinese culture didn’t present the United States as such a place. Based on Chinese culture and perspectives, there are numerous fallacies concerning the American Dream, and these are displayed in Amy Tan’s short story “Two Kinds”.
In the “Two Kinds” story the author illustrates the struggle between her American cultural identity, and her mother’s Chinese culture, as like the characters in the story. The author shows what is the struggle and the conflict that cultural differences creates. The author also uses symbolism, to address the conflicts between the characters in the story.
they can’t expect an outcome. Amy Tan in her short story, “Two kinds” Mei Woo’s mother tries to