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Study Questions - Two Kinds by Amy Tan

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What is the relationship between Jing-Mei and her mother at this point in the narrative? What textual evidence supports your response? She looks at her mother as a person who has lost everything and her only hope is for Jing-Mei to become successful. The mother believes that her daughter is capable of doing anything and she expects her to do whatever she wants her to do and be the best at it. She thinks that by trying out the different things that her mother wants her to do, she might find her identity. How does Jing-Mei’s perspective change in this section? What explains this change? Jing-Mei is tired of constantly being pressured by her mom to be the best at everything. Even though at first she was optimistic and she believed that all of the tests and challenges will make her succeed, now she was just tired of failing over and over again. She realized that her mother thinks that she is not good enough so she is trying to change her into a person who is just not her. What conflicts are apparent in this conversation? What are the reasons for the conflicts? Jing-Mei was looking for a chance to tell her mom all that she has hold in all this time. She indirectly addresses that her mom is always picking on her even though she is trying her best to be the best but isn’t just here yet. Her mom directly tells her that she is ungrateful and she is not the best and she is not even trying to be the best. How does the relationship between Jing-Mei’s mother and Auntie Lindo contribute to the conflict between Jing-Mei and her mother? Auntie Lindo’s daughter makes it hard for Jing Mei’s mother to show off anything and brag so she is trying her best to compete with Auntie Lindo and brag about how talented and successful she is but no matter how hard she tries to make Jing Mei look like the more successful one, she keeps failing. As a result the same sort of conflict takes place between Jing-Mei and her mother; Jing-Mei is trying her best to meet up to her mother’s standards but no matter how hard she tries, she doesn’t succeed. How does the narrator’s tone shift during this scene? At first, she was peacefully playing her song, and while not caring about how she sounded, she was enjoying how beautiful she looked while all of a sudden she hit a wrong note and she kept hitting one wrong note after the other. All of her confidence and her peacefulness was gone and unlike how she thought that she wouldn’t care if she messes up, she got really nervous and started shaking. Even though at first she wasn’t even trying to be good, eventually she wanted to be good and she was trying her best to be good. Her tone switches from a calm tone to a very nervous and stressful tone. Why do you think Tan uses fragments to describe the acts in the show? This novel excerpt is in informal voice and using fragments makes her sentences sound more casual. Also, by separating the acts using fragments, she draws your full attention to all of them individually but if she was to put them all together in once sentence you would most likely not pay as much attention to the acts that she is mentioning. What shift is happening here and how is it related to the central conflict in

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