Literay Devices In Two Kinds
Tariq Abdulgader, Jamarkus Mcquirter /8/24/12
Setting
The setting is in San Francisco chinatown 1949.
characters
The characters in the story are a young chinese girl and her mother who lived in china for a while with her husband.
Plot
Her mother beleived that in america you could be anything you wanted. So she tried to make her a child prodigy like Shirley Temple. She would pound her with training and make her learn everything. Then she took her to a beauty school to get her hair done, but they ended messing up her hair. She liked her look though which made it better. She had this prodigy image that she saw in her self but it never came out. Every night after dinner she would test her, asking her questions about math and geography. Her mother then decided that her daughter would play piano. but she wasnt worried because they didnt have a piano. Her mother scheduled her for piano lessons.She began the piano lessons and met Mr. Chong, a blind retired music teacher.She practiced for sometime with him.Then one day at church, her mother started to brag to her auntie on how good her daughter was. she said that she would play at the church infront of everyone. She was very upset with her mother because she wasnt that good. She then went and played at the church and forgot everything and was embarassed.She was expecting to be yelled at by her mother but her mother was silent. This disturbed the little girl.A day later her mother told her to get up and go to piano practice.Then the little girl got up and yelled at her mother and told her she didnt want to go.She then told her mother that she wished she was never born like the other babies. There was silence, she cotinued the rest of her life and never talked about it again. When she became older ,her 30th birthday, her mother offered her the old piano. She was hesitant to take it but her mother insisted. So she had taken the piano and began to play and she played pleading child, the song she messed up, and perfectly contended and then she realized they were both two halves of the same song.
Internal conflict
The internal conflict was that the girl didnt know who she really was and was ashamed of her self that she dissapointed her mother.
External conflict
She was mad at her mother.She was angered by her because she always tried to make her into something she wasnt and she got frustrated with her mother
Theme
The theme is that some parents control their children to much. They try to make them something they dont want to be. In the story Ni Kon mother tries to force her to be a child prodigy.
Symbollism
In the story the piano symbollized the relationship between the mother and daughter. The fact that the 2 halfs of the one song symbalizes Jing mays life.
In the first part of the story there is a scene in wich the daughter sees her self in the mirror.What does she see? What thematic significance could thsi scene have? How does it relate to the title
She sees the prodigy side of her self in the mirror.It shows the internal conflict she is having with herself. The name of the story is two kinds and she is seeing the second kind of daughter she is in the mirror.
Two strong willed characters are pitted against eachother in this story. What went wrong in the relationship between the mother and the daughter?
The mother and the daughter are pitted against eachother and they both disagree and lose their relationship.
Read carefully the parts dealing with the mother’s earlier life in China. How have her earlier experiences shaped her ambitions for her daughter?
Their previous expirences in china were probably bad so and she lost her children except one so she only wants the best for her. Since its her only daughter she wants her to be successful and make it in life.