She spanks Sophie as she tries to discipline her, and by the end of the story when Natalie and John find out, they ask her to move out of the house and her contact with Sophie is forbidden. In Two Kinds, the narrator Jing-mei is a young first generation American with a Chinese background. Her mother has a very utopian and positive view of America. She wants what is best for her daughter. Jing-mei resists her mother’s desire to make her a musical prodigy.
At the end due to the inability of Abby to succeed in her liberty, she witnesses lack of strength and the fear her mother has at the Blarney Stone. In Morrison’s Sula, the mother’s emotional and nurturing detachment from the daughters through generations helps all of them create a female-self identity. This lack of nurture may be a direct result of the maternal figure's focus on survival, as Eva can't take time to show love for her children but is able to sacrifice a leg to ensure physical endurance. In her mind these acts confess her love for them while in Hanna's head, the emotional connection that she needs from her mother is not present. As Hannah becomes a mother herself and a mother being the first model of love that the children experiences, she emotionally detaches herself from Sula as she was detached from her mother.
Waverly cannot focus on her chess playing because her mother continues incessantly to push her to improve her game. However, Waverly wants to play well while also enjoying the game. She wishes to convince her mother that she should not be so judge mental when she does not even know how to play the game. Because her mother is hard on her, Waverly feels like her mother is not on her side, but they are both working towards the same goal, just like a chess game. Trying to avoid her mother’s ridicule is like trying to win a mental game of chess.
One of the key examples of external conflict in this story occurs when Jing-mei's mother scheduled piano lessons for Jing-mei without her consent. Jing-mei's mother decides she wants Jing-mei to try her hand at being a pianist so that she can be famed like the little Chinese girl on the Ed Sullivan Show. Jing-mei was upset when she heard this, she said, "When my mother told me this, I felt as though I had been sent to hell. "(Tan, 48) Jing-mei's reference to "hell" shows the antipathy against her mother's decision. Jing-mei wanted to be her own person so she was determined not to try hard at the piano lessons.
Response to “Two Kinds” Donna-Lee Bellamy Jing-mei’s confrontation with her mother following the recital is not where the climax occurs in Amy Tan’s Two Kinds. Jing-mei is the protagonist and during the climax the protagonist is supposed to change during that event. Jing-mei’s mother is constantly encouraging her, telling her she can be a prodigy if she puts forth more effort, but Jing-mei does not believe in herself or her abilities. Jing-mei says, “ For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could only be me” (464).
The reoccurring line in this poem, “not good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough”, is to emphasize this aspect of her mind. The poem also mentions how the girl failed to get high grades in exams. This also suggests that her parents were more concerned about the grades she acquires and not truly very supportive of their daughter. The speaker feels weighted down by expectations. As she
Mira Nedd consistently pushes her daughter because she would like for her to be an example to her peers. Ona has ambitions of becoming a professional dancer but in this community dancing is taboo. There is evidence of this in the book when Mrs. Small introduces her class to dance during a lesson about different cultures around the world: “As thought introducing the girls to something illegal, Mrs. Small closed the door to the small arts room. Ignoring the heat from the scorching afternoon sun and the suffocating room, she played the records and enthralled the students.” (Foster, 57). Ona’s wishes are especially not welcome by her mother who frequently warns her of her past and a family curse which revolves around dance and adultery.
She wants to lose her virginity to her favorite singer Rex Manning. But when she is about to go through with it she gets scared and runs out of the room, realizing she was making a big mistake. She didn’t even know him; she thought he was the one because she idolized him. At the last minute she realized she wasn’t ready yet.. Even though Corie seems to be perfect on the outside, on the inside she is really struggling to keep it together and find her path.
RJ#6: Conflict Response to Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds” In “Two Kinds” the narrator, an Americanized Chinese girl named Jing-mei, describes growing up with her strict and ambitious Chinese born mother. Since a very early age, Jing-mei’s mother relentlessly challenged her, first believing she could be a prodigy with beyond average intelligence, and then having her take lessons with the retired, deaf piano teacher Mr. Chong in exchange for housekeeping services. The constant disappointment from her mother caused Jing-mei to lash out in rebellion, and she began to purposefully fail at her piano lessons. When her mother had her perform at their church in a talent show, Jing-mei did poorly, embarrassing them both. To Jing-mei’s surprise, her mother still tried to force her to practice even after what had happened, so in her anger she told her mother she wished she was dead, just like the twin babies her mother had lost in China.
Jane’s cousin, Master John, discovers her reading a book from ‘his’ bookshelf, and assaults her. When taking Jane to the red-room, Miss Abbot comments: “And you ought not to think of yourself on an equality with the Misses Reed and Master Reed, because Missis kindly allows you to be brought up with them. They will have a great deal of money, and you will have none: it is your place to be humble and to try to make yourself agreeable to them.” Even as a child, Jane is emotionally neglected because of the prejudices of society. Of no fault of her own, she was predetermined a social outcast to her aristocratic relatives, purely because of her genealogy. Whilst this approach would have been accepted by readers of the time as natural, within a modern society a strong sense of injustice is aroused.