Amy Tan Two Kinds Literary Analysis

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In the story “Two Kinds”, the narrator Amy Tan talked about her relationship with her mother and how she viewed the older and younger generations of Chinese American families. The setting of the story helps bring an understanding of each character. Even though there are various types of setting used in this story, this piece is specifically going to talk about the cultural setting. Cultural setting is divided into two parts; physical and nonphysical setting. Physical cultural setting is the dialogue or the way the character speaks whiles nonphysical cultural setting are ideas or intangibles such as education levels, socioeconomics and religion. Cultural differences played a strong role in influencing both the mother and daughter in the story.…show more content…
In the Chinese home, there’s obedience and the parent set the rules of the house. The children are supposed to obey the rules without any utterances. It was different with the narrator who was a Chinese American and her mother who was a Chinese but migrated to America. The narrator stated, “three days after watching the Ed Sullivan Show, my mother told me what my schedule would be for piano lessons and piano practice”. According to the narrator, when her mother told her about this, she fumed and said “why don’t you like me the way I am? I’m not genius! I can’t play the piano”. From the passage, it was stated that her mother slapped her after she made this utterance. This shows a clear cultural conflict between the two. I believe her mother felt she disobeyed her for talking back at her. In the American culture, everybody is entitled to his or her opinion. You don’t enforce on your child what you think will be of benefit to her. Her daughter was content and sees nothing wrong with how she was but her mother thought otherwise. In the passage her daughter stated “I won’t let her change me, I promise myself. I won’t be what am
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