Good Example Of Two Kinds By Amy Tan Critical Thinking

Amy Tan’s Two Kinds depicts the life of Jing-Mei Woo, a young woman of Chinese – American descent. Woo recollects her mother’s sadness because she had lost her parents, her home, her twin daughters, and her first husband before she fled China. In addition, Woo looks at her mother’s strength, because she shows no regrets about losing everything, and yet is able to embrace the American Dream. Woo rebels against the lesson her mother teaches, even though they can teach her to appreciate that reality everyone can succeed if they have faith and perseverance. Woo’s mother, Suyuan, is the typical mother, who wants her to achieve the American dream. Woo does not appreciate her mother’s desires and lashes out in the most hurtful way. She tells her mother that she wishes that she was dead like her sisters in China.
Throughout the story there is the theme of the struggle for power and control. Woo struggles to be her own person and makes her own choices, while her mother struggles to help her daughter to achieve the best of life. The clash in the beliefs in the culture of the Asian immigrant and the Asian American daughter becomes clearer in the way Woo plays the piano. The notes are dissonant, and Woo only creates some amount of harmony in playing the piano after her mother dies. This suggests that the narrator’s resentment of her mother never wavered until after her death. Her resentment heightens in the story, as Woo sees the disappointment in her mother’s eyes every time she fails to achieve her dreams. Her mother does not understand why Woo cannot accept that she can become anyone she wants to become if she only tries. The reader recognizes the strength of the title of the story, when Suyuan tells Woo that there are “two kinds” kinds of daughter: the obedient daughter and the daughter who follows her own mind. Woo is strong in her personal beliefs and represents the daughter who follows her own mind. In the climax of the story, Woo tells Suyuan that she will never become the person she wants her to be, but Suyuan reminds her that she will only tolerate the obedient daughter in her house. This unresolved conflict follows Woo throughout the years, and later, she realizes that this was the breaking point in her relationship with her mother.
One can say that Woo’s journey to self-discovery was painful. In the end, she physically puts her mother’s things in order for her father, while she gathers her past childhood experiences with her mother. She plays two symbolic musical pieces that she sees as she reopens the piano after many years. In the end, she finally realizes that the musical pieces: “Pleading Child” and “Perfectly Contented” are the halves of one song. Both pieces are symbolic as they represent her life as the child pleading to be an individual who wants to be “perfectly contented” even if it tears apart the relationship with her mother. Tan skillfully allows the narrator to recognize the betrayal and guilt that leads Woo to finally appreciate her mother and embrace her inner strength.