Essay Two Kinds

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Two Kinds Summary: In the story ”Two Kinds” the main character and the narrator is a Chinese-American girl, who is in a struggle with her Chinese immigrant mother who believes “you can be anything you want to be in America”. The story kicks off with the main character’s mother wanting her to become an infant prodigy. The mother starts, in hope to make her daughter an infant prodigy, by taking her to a beauty training school, where she gets her hair cut like peter pan. The main character and her mother sits up every night reading about other infant prodigies. She then starts testing her daughter in a lot of weird ways. This is when the daughter starts having difficulties with her mother’s ways. She cries every night and tells herself that she won’t let her mom change her. Her mother then forces her to take piano lessons from an old, deaf, retired piano teacher who lives in their apartment building. After a few weeks the mother and the old, deaf, retired piano teacher, Old Chong arrange for the daughter to go to a talent show in a church hall. After first having high hopes for herself the, daughter fails miserably on the piano in the talent show. After the talent show she then stands up to her mother who still wants her to take piano lessons. She then has feelings of guilt towards the end, since she can’t match her mother’s expectations. But then in the end she comes to good terms with her mother, when she offers her the piano she used to play on. This was on her 13th birthday. Essay: The name of the story is “Two Kinds” and it was written in 1989 by Amy Tan. It’s about a girl who in the beginning of the story is 9 years old (page 1, line 6) and in the end is 13 years old (page 5, line 160). She in this time has a identity struggle with her mother, because she is obsessed with the American idea of being anyone you want. The story is written in first person

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