Literary Devices in "Two Kinds"
Richard Mwamba, August 24 2012
Setting
"Two Kinds" is a short story that is set in San Fransico, CA's Chinatown
Theme
A good theme for this story is that you should respect people for the way they are. Jing Mei's mother is tryong to change the way her daughter is but Jing Mei does not want it to happen, and because of this, it makes the relationship between the two even more difficult and complicated.
San Fransico, CA's Chinatown
This is the setting of the story. The mother and daughter live together in this town based on China
Jing Mei
This is an unoffical picture of Jing Mei playing piano. Her mom decides to make her a prodigy by playing piano.
Young Jing Mei and her Mother
Despite the hardships between the two of them, they still love each others.
Plot
The mother and daughter move to America because the mother believes that America is a place for a new start, a place where working hard will get you to become vey succesful. The mom believes that her daughter, Jing Mei Woo, is very talented. She wants her daughter to become a prodigy by forcing her to do things against her own free will. She tries many things to make her become one but eventually, Jing Mei starts to build up a rebellious attitude aganist her.
Internal Conflict
An example of an internal conflict is when Jing Mei is depressed during one night after her mother was dissapointed for not doing well on the tests she made her do. She looks at a mirror to clean her face but when she looked closely, she saw another side of her. It was the prodigy side that was different from her, She then decides that she won't let it change her and won't let her mother force her to become something she doesn't want to become.
External Conflict
An example of an external conflict is that during the story the mother enrolls her in piano lessons, without letting Jing Mei know, so she can be famous on TV. She gets really upset because her mother wants her to be someone that she is not. Jing Mei wants to be her own person but her mother is trying to make her a daughter that Jing Mei does not want to be.
Symbolism
The symbol of the story was the piano