Two Kinds Literary Analysis

The American Dream means that with hard work and a little luck we can be anything we wanted to. Amy Tan, the author of “Two Kinds”, seems to say that although Jing-Mei’s mom can be bossy, she probably does this to help her daughter succeed. In this short story, “Two Kinds”, the main character, Jing-Mei Woo, also known as June, is forced by her mother, Mrs. Woo on learning how to play the piano and be the ultimate best. Mrs.Woo doesn’t really give Jing-Mei a choice, she wants to be able to brag about her daughter's “natural pride”. However, this makes Jing-Mei wants to shut down her mom’s dream of having the perfect daughter since she’s not really good at playing the piano. We know this because the story is all told from Jing-Mei’s point of view but we lack Mrs. Woo point of view and this affects the story. By explaining how the point of view affects the characterization, I will show how Mrs. Woo, although she was bossy, in reality, she knows what hardships live comes with. Parents want their kids to be ultimately successful and be self-sufficient, but in order to do that, you should accomplish things like school so that you can succeed and have a good future. …show more content…
Then when she basically told her mom she shouldn’t have the piano because “well, I probably can’t play anymore”, her mom answered with “you just not trying”. This time her mom had not tried to argue with June whatsoever this made her feel as though maybe her mom had never been disappointed. This is a perfect moment in which we would have needed the mom’s point of view, because maybe at that time her mom just wanted June to have the piano as something to maybe pass down to her kids, however, we don’t know that. Also, Mrs. Woo had the piano sitting in their room which June was happy about and viewed it as her one and only