The short story Two Kinds Essay Example for Free

The short story Two Kinds EssayAnalysis The short story, Two Kinds, displays the relationship between a Chinese fret and a disobedient Americanized daughter. Jing-mei, a second-generation Chinese daughter, deals with her own internal conflict as well as an external conflict with her go. The internal effort to think her true self is a lesson Jing-mei will have to discover, as she gets older. Being born of Chinese heritage, Jing-mei struggles with the burden of failing to meet her mothers expectations.She was never sure what she valued to become. Throughout the story, Amy Tan represents the theme that parents cannot control their children, exclusively can only guide them. Amy Tans Two Kinds first two divides provides information about the mothers beliefs. There are at least two things (1) the voice of a narrator who does not quite share her mothers opinion, and (2) a absurd tone. When someone says, My mother believed, there is sure to be some difference between the speaker and the reported belief.The belief is further distanced by the fivefold repeating of You could. The comedyperhaps better characterized as mild humoris evident in the naivete or simplicity of ambitions open a business, work for a company, retire, buy a house, become famous. Many people whitethorn feel superior (as the daughter herself does) to this mother, who apparently thinks that in America money and fame and even thaumaturgist are readily available to totally who apply themselvesbut many people whitethorn also wish that their mother was as enthusiastic.The second paragraph adds a sort of comic topper. After all, when the mother says, in the first paragraph, you could be anything you wanted to be in America, the ambitions that she specifies are not impossible, but when in the second paragraph she says, you can be prodigy too, and you can be best anything, we realize that we are listening to an obsessed parent, a woman ferociously possessive of her daughter.Obsessions, of course , can be the stuff of tragedyMacbeth, Brutus, and so forthbut obsessions are also the stuff of comedy. The third paragraph, with its references to the terrible losses in China, darkens the tone, but the fourth restores the comedy, with its vision of a Chinese Shirley Temple.The fifth paragraph is perhaps the most obviously funny so far. When Shirley Temple cries, the narrators mother says to her daughter You already know how. Dont need talent for cryingPeopleaccustomed to thinking that everything in a standard is deadly seriouseasily miss the humor. They will definitely grasp the absurdity of the thought that Nairobi might be one way of pronouncing Helsinki, but they may miss the delightful comedy of Auntie Lindo pretending that Waverlys abundant chess trophies are a nuisance (all day I have no time to do nothing but dust off her winnings), and even a deaf piano teacher may not strike them as comic.The story is comic (for example, in the mothers single-mindedness, and in the daught ers absurd hope that the recital may be going all right, even though she is hitting all the wrong notes) but is also serious (the conflict between the mother and the daughter, the mothers passionate love, the daughters rebelliousness, and the daughters later recognition that her mother loved her deeply). It is serious, too, in the way it shows us (especially in the changeover about the old Chinese silk dresses) the narrators deepening perception of her Chinese heritage.Humor and seriousness can be found in all types of family situations between parents and children.