Amy Tan_Two Kinds.pdf
Writing a characterization.pdf
As the daughter of two Chinese immigrants, Jing-mei has one foot in two vastly different worlds, slowly losing her own culture to the American one. Although very similar to her mother in some aspects, Jing-mei’s opinions and views strongly differ from her mothers. After first going over how Jing-mei behaves, I will come back to this and describe her relationship with her mother based on those differing views and values.
At the beginning of the story, Jing-mei is portrayed as immature and imaginative, even foolish. At first, she believes in her mother’s expectations and even expresses hope towards them. It is stated that “in the beginning, [she] was just as excited as [her] mother, maybe even more so” (ln. 32 f.).
In addition to this, it is shown how she expects to become a prodigy easily and fast without putting in any work (comp. ln. 211-213).
She refuses to learn to actually play the piano, cheating during her lessons out of spite and not learning the piece she is supposed to present at the talent show: “[…] I dawdled over it, playing a few bars and then cheating, looking up to see what notes followed. I never really listened to what I was playing. I daydreamed about being somewhere else, about being someone else” (ln. 207-210) (This also shows that she is rebellious, which I will come back to later).
Despite this, she expects to be able to perform well at the recital, “[envisioning] people jumping to their feet and Ed Sullivan rushing up to introduce [her] to everyone on TV” (ln. 228).
Coming back to what I’ve touched on beforehand, Jing-mei is quite rebellious, which develops further as the story goes on. Besides from not practising the piano, she refuses to obey her mother’s command: “I didn’t budge. And then I decided, I didn’t have to do what my mother said anymore. I wasn’t her slave. This wasn’t China. I had listened to her before and look what happened. She was the stupid one.” (ln. 283-285).
However, Jing-mei isn’t just a bratty child, she is hot-tempered (comp. ln. 264 f.) and strong-willed (comp. ln. 79-82) but repeatedly expresses remorse on her actions, especially after fights with her mother. After the disastrous piano recital, Jing-mei expects her mother to be angry with her. Only after that doesn’t happen, she realizes how devastating her failure must’ve been for her mother: “[M]y mother’s expression was what devastated me: a quiet, blank look that said she had lost everything. […] When we got on the bus to go home, […] my mother was silent. I kept thinking she wanted to wait until we got home before shouting at me. But when my father unlocked the door to our apartment, my mother walked in and then went to the back, into the bedroom. No accusations. No blame. And in a way, I felt disappointed. I had been waiting for her to start shouting, so I could shout back and cry and blame her for all my misery.” (ln. 266-275).
With the defining character traits of Jing-mei established, her relationship with her mother is now easier to define. Like I already mentioned, even though Jing-mei and her mother have very different values and opinions, they share some traits. Important here is that her mother is also very hot-tempered (comp. ln. 295-305). These circumstances lead to frequent fights between the two, which also root in their different opinions and Jing-mei’s rebelliousness.
In addition to this, they struggle to communicate effectively. It is mentioned how they do not ever again talk about the piano recital and the fight that happens afterwards: “And for all those years we never talked about the disaster at the recital or my terrible declarations afterward at the piano bench. All that remained unchecked, as if it were a betrayal that was now unspeakable.”
To sum up, Jing-mei can be best described as a rebellious, strong-willed, hot-headed and own-minded individual, which is the root cause for her bad relationship with her mother, which mostly suffers due to poor communication between the two.