“Two Kinds” was first published independently as a short story in
Atlantic Monthly
in 1989, one month prior to the publication of The Joy Luck Club.
When was Two Kinds by Amy Tan published?
“Two kinds” is a short story from the book The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. It was first published in
1989
. The short story outlines the main Jing- Mei Woo’s childhood and the effects of her mother’s high expectations for her life.
Who published Amy Tan?
Her work has been translated into 35 languages, from Spanish, French, and Finnish to Chinese, Arabic, and Hebrew. Amy Tan latest book, Where the Past Begins: A Writer’s Memoir, will be published by
ECCO/HarperCollins
in October 2017. She is at work on another novel, The Memory of Desire.
What is the place of Amy Tan in American literature?
Who Is Amy Tan? Amy Tan is a
Chinese American
writer and novelist. In 1985, she wrote the story “Rules of the Game,” which was the foundation for her first novel The Joy Luck Club. The book explored the relationship between Chinese women and their Chinese-American daughters.
Is Two Kinds a true story?
“Two Kinds” is
a fictional autobiography
because it tells the story of the little girl Jing-mei, who doesn’t really exist. An autobiography is a nonfiction, or true, account of a person’s life written from that person’s perspective.
Why does Jing-Mei refuse to take the piano lessons?
Initially, Jing-mei refuses to take piano lessons
because her mother has been trying, for quite some time, to figure out a way in which Jing-mei might be a prodigy
. Jing-mei feels that she has disappointed her mother all these times, and so she feels badly about herself and resentful of her mother.
What is the irony in Two Kinds?
“Two Kinds” bleeds irony. An example of this irony is the
verbal irony after Jing-Mei’s terrible piano recital when her father exclaims
, “’That was somethin’ else,’ said my father, and I wondered if he was referring to me in a humorous way, or whether he even remembered what I had done” (101).
Did Amy Tan have a stroke?
In 1998, Tan contracted
Lyme disease
, which went misdiagnosed for a few years. As a result, she suffers complications like epileptic seizures. Tan co-founded LymeAid 4 Kids, which helps uninsured children pay for treatment. She wrote about her life with Lyme disease in The New York Times.
Why did Amy Tan and her mother stop speaking?
Tan’s relationship with her mother had deteriorated after the deaths of her father, an electrical engineer and Baptist minister, and her brother, both of whom died of brain tumors when she was 15. … Mother and daughter stopped speaking to each other for
six months
.
Does Amy Tan speak Chinese?
Brought up bilingual (in her dreams,
she speaks fluent Mandarin
), Tan was soon refusing to speak Chinese in public. She became an interpreter for her mother, of whose imperfect English she was ashamed. “It’s something I resented as a child,” she recalls, “though you can look at it with humour.
When she was a teenager how did Amy feel about her Chinese heritage?
By the time Amy was a teenager,
she had rejected everything Chinese
. She even felt ashamed of eating “horrible” five-course Chinese meals and decided that she would grow up to look more American if she ate more “American” foods.
Who is Amy Tan husband?
Tan and her husband,
Lou DeMattei
, a tax lawyer, live in this city north of the Golden Gate Bridge and not far from Oakland, where Tan was born in 1952, two years after her parents emigrated from China.
What does the piano in Two Kinds symbolize?
The piano represents
reconciliation between mother and daughter
. Jing-mei took it as a sign of acceptance and she later realized that her mother had never given up on her.
How does Jing-Mei feel about herself?
Jing-mei feels
suffocated by the burden of her mother’s expectations
and tries out many selves to be someone who can make her mother proud, from a “Chinese Shirley Temple” to a precocious magician who can find the Queen in any deck of cards to a piano-playing prodigy.
What Two Kinds of daughters are there?
The title “Two Kinds” is referred to by Jing-Mei’s mother when she states that there are only two kinds of daughters: “
Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!
” She gives an example of the kind of daughter that she wants Jing-Mei to be, versus the kind that Jing-Mei is being.
