Everyday Use By Alice Walker Analysis

Both Amy Tan in “Two Kinds” and Alice Walker in “Everyday Use” provide the theme of self realization through experience. Although both focus on mother daughter relationships, Tan tells her point of view from the daughter, Jing Mei. While Walker narrates through Mama’s point of view.
In “Two Kinds” Amy Tan tells a story of a mother and daughter’s relationship with one another straining as the stress of conflicting dreams comes to a head. To the mother, Suyuan, America is the land of opportunity. She has high hopes that her daughter will be a great success as a prodigy. Although she's not precisely sure where her daughter's talents lie, she is sure that her daughter possesses great ability. She simply needs to find the right vehicle for her daughter Jing-mei's talents. First, Suyuan tries to mold her daughter into a child actress, she then tries intellectual tests and finally she decides Jing-mei will be a piano virtuoso. …show more content…
Chong. Mr. Chong is an elderly piano teacher, who is deaf and whose eyes are too weak to tell when Jing-mei is playing the wrong notes. However, Mr. Chong's efforts are so sincere that Jing-mei picks up the basics, but she is so determined not to cooperate that she plays very badly. Suyuan continues to clean houses and scrapes together enough money to buy a secondhand piano. A few weeks later, Jing-mei participates in a talent show in which friends and family come to her piano debut. Even though she has not practiced and does not know the music, Jing-mei has come to believe that she is indeed a prodigy. However, halfway through the song, though, she begins to realize how badly she is playing. The weak applause and her parents' disappointed looks reveal the truth to Jing-mei that she is not a musical