The mother in Amy Tan's, "Two Kinds," is an immigrant who
wholeheartedly embraces the American Dream. She can't live it herself, so she tries to
force her daughter to live it for her.
She tries to coerce
her daughter into becoming a child prodigy: she wants a superstar for a daughter. She
doesn't care what her daughter becomes famous for, she just wants her to become famous.
She sets impossible goals for her daughter based on American
TV.
Her abrasive methods backfire, of course, and Jing-Mei
rebels.
Perhaps most telling, the mother sees the world in
a simplistic manner, telling her daughter that there are only two kinds of daughters,
ones who obey absolutely everything a parent says, and ones who don't. This is
simplistic, as well as sexist, of course. The world is not that simple, and can't be
divided into two clear, black and white, dichotomies, or parts. The mother wants
Jing-Mei to know her place, a woman's place, like she, herself, apparently
does.
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