Literary Devices In Two Kinds
Kaitlynn Gilbreth 8/24/12
Setting
In San Fransico, in the Chinatown, that is one of the largest Chinese communities outside of Asia. Chinatown has multiple resturants, shops, businesses, and with religious buildings.
Characters
Jing-mei and her mom are the main chracters in this story.
Plot
In the expostion Jing-mei is being pushed to find something she is good at so she can be the next big chinese daughter in the U.S. In the rising action Jings mom finds her a piano teacher and tries to push her to become a star. Then in the climax after Jing had messed up at the talent show her and her mom got into a fight because her mom wanted to push her into playing the piano some more. In the resolution after her and her mom hadnt talked in years her mom called her to give her the piano they bought for her when she was little.
Internal Conflict
When Jing doesnt want to become a star child but she doesnt tell her mother because shes afraid to hurt her.
External Conflict
The external conflict in this story would be the fighting between Jing and her mother about how her mother wanted her to be the next famous child but she doesn't want to be better then who she really is.
Theme
The theme of this short story would be that not every child can be what their parents want them to be.
Symbolism
Some symbolism in this short story would be the grand piano, Chinatown, and the talent show.
In the first part of the story there is a scene in which the daughter sees herself in the mirror. What does she see? What thematic significance could this scene have? How does it relate to the title?
The daughter sees a girl that is nothing like what her mom wants her to be, and the significance the scene could have on the story is foreshadowing that the daughter will feel like she cant be what her mom wants her to be. This all relates to the title because she is not either one of the kind of child her mom wants her to be.
What went wrong in the relationship between mother and daughter?
What went wrong was the daughter disappointed her mother and her mother still wanted her to try afterwards to get better, but Jing didn't want to and put up a fight and used what she knew would hurt her mother, the death of her twins before Jing, to bring her down to make her stop.
How have the mothers earlier experiences shape her ambitions for her daughter?
This helped shape her ambitions because it made her expect greater things from her daughter to replace the twins that she was supposed to have, therefore she pushed her daughter way harder then she needed to.
