Literary Divices Found in Two Kinds
Whittney Simon 8/28/12
Setting
This short story takes place in San Francisco, California, and Chinatown, which is one of the largest Chinese communities.
Characters
Jing-mei and her mother battle with each other throughout the story. Her mother, a Chinese immigrant, wants her American born daughter to become a prodigy
Theme
The theme in this short story, "two kinds", is that family relationships can be difficult. whem jing-mei's mother strives for her to be a prodigy jing-mei feels like she isnt good enough for her mother and refuse to work hard. This leads to ming embaressing herself at the talent show and embaressing her mother. To conclude her and her mother get into a hudge fight and she brings up the babies her mother had lost. In the end they relize although they have had a difficult relationship thier family and they love each other.
Plot
The exposition(begining) of the story the mother believes that her daughter jing-mei could be a prodigy. She believes this because she thinks that in a merica thqat you could be anything you wanted to be. The rising action(the events leading up to the climax) would be all the test and piano lessons her mom puts her through. also when she decides that she isnt gonna try and is lazy so she slack off during all her piano lessons. the climax(the height of the story) is when she is preforminng at the talent show and she hits all the wrong notes and embaresses her mom. The falling action would be whenthey got into the hudge fight and jing-mei brought up the babie her mother had lost. the resolution(the end) would be when her mother dies and jing-mei starts to actually learn to play the piano.
Internal Conflict
The internal conflict would be when jing-mei was felling like she didnt wanna change so in her mind she struggled to decide if she would go along with her mothers decisions or rebel and choose not to change her self.
External Conflict
the extrernal conflict would be when her and her mother were in a fight about her doing poorly in the talent show. This is the external conflict because is outside her mind.
Symbolism
This story sybolizes that family relationships are difficult. That you have to look at both sides of the story. Its really easy to pick one side when youve only heard one person talk. but when your looking in as a third person perspective you she there is two sides to everyone story.
Looking into the mirror
Theres a scene in the book when jing-mei looks into the mirror. at first she sees shes just her, she describes her face as just ordinary and ugly. Then when she looked agian she saw her prodigy side a srtong and powerful girl.
Strong Willed People
Jing-mei and her mother are both strong willed people. In other words, stuborn. Her mother wanted one this and jing-mei wanted another. They were both to stuborn so comprimise so when the build up got to much it turned into this hudge fight.
Early Life
early in her mothers life, she lost all her babies. when Jing-mei was born her mother wanted nothing but the best for her little girl. Because of her early expirences she was alittle more ambicious for her daughter to be a prodigy.