Nicole Zerbo
September 17, 2012
Free Write For “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan
I choose to
do my free write on the excerpt “Two Kinds” from The Joy Luck Club by
Amy Tan because I have read The Joy Luck Club before and thoroughly
enjoyed the novel. All of the stories in
this novel are about mother and daughter’s confrontations and perspectives
about growing up and being raised in certain cultures. Many of the mothers in
this novel push their daughters to become something that they are not or do not
want to be: award winning chess players, a high seat at the Mahjong table, to
become more associated with their family/culture, or in this case, a child
prodigy. There is one main recurring theme throughout this book which is a
mother having power of their child’s unwanted destiny.
Furthermore,
in the story “Two Kinds,” Jing Mei talks about how her mother quizzically interrogates
her because she wants her to be a child prodigy. Jing Mei could not take any
more of her mother’s frustrating quizzes and disappointing gestures so she
stopped trying all together. Sometimes when people see disappointment, it
motivates them to work harder, but not Jing Mei. The story goes on to tell the
reader that Jing Mei’s mother watches a child pianist on TV; she then criticizes
Jing Mei saying, “Not the best, Because you not trying” (Line 34). I enjoy
reading The Joy Luck Club for many reasons, but the main reasons are
because every story told contains emotions and life lessons in the end with
accompanying emotional themes of story-telling.
Not to be a
spoiler, but Tan titles the story “Two Kinds” for a reason. Mid way into the
story, the reader soon finds out that Jing Mei’s mother only wants one kind of
girl living in her house; an obedient one. She states that there are two kinds
of girls, “Those who are obedient and those who live by their own mind!” (Lines
71-72)
I enjoy the
humor the most in “Two Kinds.” An example is on lines 25-28, “In spite of these
warning signs, I wasn’t worried. Our family had no piano and we couldn’t afford
to buy one, let alone reams of sheet music and piano lessons.” I laughed while
reading these quotes, but I found it even funnier when Tan explains that Jing
Mei’s mother signs her up for piano lessons from a retired piano teacher (who
of course is ironically deaf.) The lessons were of course free, “traded with
house cleaning services for weekly lessons and piano practice. . .”(Line 30). Jing Mei decides to rebel against her mother
and takes the easy way out which I find interestingly humorous, especially when
entered in the recital since Jing Mei fakes her notes and keys throughout her
piano lessons. Sometimes I really did think that Jing Mei would end up doing
fairly well in the recital because she is smart enough to follow the tone and “the
simple scale, the simple chord” (Line 40). Tan writes “So maybe I never really
gave myself a fair chance. I did pick up the basics pretty quickly and I might
have become a good pianist at that young age. But I was so determined not to
try” (Lines 31-32).
After the “humorous”
part of the parable, emotions begin to run wild; the mother’s disappointment in
Jing Mei for not trying hard enough (if at all), Jing Mei’s terrible wish about
being “dead like them,” and finally, her mother’s death. Towards the end of the
story Jing Mei has an epiphany and realizes that the two songs from the song
book are two halves of one whole song; “pleading child” and “perfectly
contented” symbolize Jing Mei’s characteristics from the story while they are
also the songs from her piano book, oh the irony. These stories are broken down into daughters and mother's perspectives. After reading "I Stand Here Ironing" by Ira Sher, I wished that Sher had another short story possibly from Emily or even Susan's perspective.
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