A Success at Failure -- Analysis of Amy Tan's short story "Two Kinds"

A Success at Failure

Amy Tan, a child of Chinese immigrants, wrote the story “Two Kinds”, telling the tale of a Jing-Mei’s rebellion against her mother’s desire to change her into a prodigy.  As Jing-Mei’s mother continually tells her she does not try hard enough to succeed, the conflict between Jing-Mei and her mother escalates. Jing-Mei grows more stubborn, making every effort to resist her mother, and the relationship devolves into a standoff where mother and daughter both refuse to budge from their position.  “Two Kinds” shows the irony in Jing-Mei’s relationship with her mother; while her mother believes Jing-Mei does not try hard enough to succeed, Jing-Mei succeeds in her struggle for identity by refusing to become the person her mother wants.

The story opens with a brief synopsis of Jing-Mei’s mother’s past.  As a Chinese immigrant fleeing from war, her mother leaves behind everything: “her mother and father, her family home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls.” (Tan 206)  As a resident in America, Jing-Mei’s mother does not wallow in misery but instead looks forward to a life with limitless boundaries, honestly believing that “[y]ou could become instantly famous.” (Tan 206)  Brent tells us that Chinese immigrants view America as a true land of opportunity and that tradition demands a daughter’s obedience to her mother (1).  With a history steeped in traditional Chinese culture and a spirit of adventure, her mother decides Jing-Mei will fulfill this dream and become a child prodigy.

At first, the anticipation of riches and fame propel Jing-Mei into cooperating with her mother, persuading Jing-Mei in the belief she can attain perfection.  She imagines herself in several wonderful images, each colorful and immensely satisfying.  These dreams, however, fail to sate her dreams for perfection because “sometimes the prodigy in [her becomes] impatient” (Tan 207).  Her uncertainties fester and lead her to discover her independent spirit, laying seed to the growth of her rebelliousness and the blossoming of the thorny relationship with her mother.

Her mother’s continual push to change Jing-Mei into a prodigy fuels Jing-Mei’s inner transformation from an obedient daughter to a defiant child.  After several pitiable failures at intelligence tests, Jing-Mei sees disappointment in her mother’s face and Jing-Mei’s desire for perfection crumbles.   Stricken, she takes a close look at herself in a mirror and sees a “sad, ugly girl” (Tan 207) looking back.  Suddenly, a change takes place and a new face emerges in the mirror.   Jing-Mei sees a “girl staring back…angry, powerful.” (Tan 207)  Her metamorphosis concludes, leaving Jing-Mei bold, assertive, and angry, filled with a desire to keep her identity and resist change.  Jing-Mei acts differently after her transformation by displaying profound apathy, causing her mother to lose resolve.

Instead of giving up, her mother decides to transform Jing-Mei into a great musician, and Jing-Mei soon finds herself taking piano lessons.  Her tutor, however, suffers from deaf ears and she takes advantage of his handicap by pretending to studiously play.  Jing-Mei succeeds with her ruse to the point where her mother brags to Jing-Mei’s Auntie Lindo about her piano playing prowess, saying: “It’s like you can’t stop her natural talent.” (Tan 209)  Soon thereafter, her mother places Jing-Mei in a talent show, whereupon Jing-Mei fails spectacularly in her performance.  Undaunted, two days later, Jing-Mei’s mother demands Jing-Mei continue to practice.  Jing-Mei realizes her mother will never relent and she decides to confront her mother in a final battle.

The tension rises and comes to a crisis point when Jing-Mei refuses to play the piano any more.  Her mother resorts to shouting in Chinese, telling Jing-Mei that she must be obedient.  In a fit of rage, Jing-Mei wishes aloud she were dead, like her deceased twin sisters, shocking her mother into silence and ultimately breaking her mother’s will.  Utterly crushed, her mother retreats from the room “like a small brown leaf, thin, brittle, lifeless.”  (Tan 211)   Jing-Mei later recalls “the lid to the piano was closed, shutting out the dust, my misery, and her dreams.” (Tan 212)  Jing-Mei and her mother never speak about the argument, leaving Jing-Mei ignorant of the reasons her mother lost hope in her.

Jing-Mei never veers from her resolve, but a surprising event offers hope for forgiveness.  On Jing-Mei’s thirtieth birthday, her mother says she wants to give the piano to Jing-Mei.  She feels at that moment “a tremendous burden removed” (Tan 212).   The gift appears to Jing-Mei as a signal for reconciliation, yet her mother offers no apology or words of consolation, only repeating the phrase: “[y]ou just not trying” (Tan 212).  As a consequence, Jing-Mei leaves the piano at her mother’s house and pays a tuner to recondition it.

Closure for Jing-Mei comes shortly after her mother’s death when she makes a small discovery at the piano. Helping her father put things in order at her mother’s house, Jing-Mei sits at her piano and plays songs she once learned. She finds the score for “Pleading Child” and discovers “Perfectly Contented” on the other side of the page.  In the final words of the story, Jing-Mei realizes the song she once learned and the new one form a single song, revealing an apt metaphor of her life.

The catalyst of her insight—the two songs formed as one—illustrates an irony present throughout the story.  In the opening text, Jing-Mei’s mother believes America holds the opportunity for anything, after having lost everything in China before her immigration to Chinatown.  Jing-Mei suffers through several tests of intelligence and skill, yet she excels at none.  The irony in the mother’s beliefs compared to the reality of the lack of innate prodigal talent in Jing-Mei grows stronger with each failure.  Following a string of failures, Jing-Mei’s one success rests with her refusal to play music, the culmination of her struggle to maintain her identity.  Jing-Mei’s mother declares her daughter does not try hard enough to excel, yet Jing-Mei does excel by asserting her individuality.  The mother sees only failure from a lack of effort by Jing-Mei, but the daughter exerts every effort to fail.  Ironically, the mother fails to see how Jing-Mei’s success at failure highlights the mother’s failure at driving Jing-Mei to succeed as a prodigy, particularly when Jing-Mei fails to prove herself a genius at the piano.

The piano itself provides no contrast, but it fills two roles in the story.  Its first function as a metaphor provides Tan the opportunity to embellish her main character’s disposition.  Apart from the focal point of the majority of the arguments between Jing-Mei and her mother, the piano represents Jing-Mei.  When Jing-Mei purposely learns and plays discordant hymns during her lessons with the deaf teacher, Mr. Chong, the dissonance becomes a clever representation of the discord Jing-Mei sows.  When her mother offers the piano as a gift, the piano remains in her mother’s home, telling us Jing-Mei has yet to release herself from past events.  After her mother’s death, Jing-Mei returns to the piano only to find it richer and of higher quality than she first assumed.  When she plays two songs and realizes they form a single song, Jing-Mei reaches a clear understanding of her own life.  The pleading of one song and the contentment of the other tell us Jing-Mei sees her growth composed of a short period pleading for independence, followed by a longer period in contentment.  In this way, the piano speaks for Jing-Mei throughout the story, telling both Jing-Mei and us about Jing-Mei’s true self.

Secondly, the piano gives life to Tan’s story through the inclusion of the piano teacher, Mr. Chong, who provides both comic relief and sublime irony.  Whereas appreciation and training in music require an acute hearing ability, Chong’s deafness defeats this requirement for his job.  Jing-Mei takes advantage of his disability and pretends to eagerly learn, leading to her spectacular failure at a talent show.  Chong launches himself to his feet at the end of Jing-Mei’s recital in the talent show and applauds while the rest of the audience struggles with their reactions to the embarrassing performance.  Tan thereby says only the deaf could not hear Jing-Mei’s pleas for individuality, while everyone else fails to understand the message Jing-Mei repeatedly expresses.  Chong makes us laugh when he sways to unheard music, but his humorous antics give focus to the depth of the struggle between mother and daughter.

The tipping point in the relationship between Jing-Mei and her mother illustrates two things: the focus of their disagreement and the strength of Jing-Mei’s will.  In a fit of rage, Jing-Mei’s mother shouts her belief there are “[o]nly two kinds of daughters…Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind” (Tan 211).  The underlying message says the relationship consists of one mind that wants acquiescence and another that wants independence.  In this one sentence, the story reveals the essence of the mother-daughter relationship, the roles each play, and their extreme emotional polarity.  Jing-Mei’s retort, wishing to be dead like her sisters who perished many years prior, lands not like a bit of straw but rather like a load of bricks upon the camel’s proverbial back, irrevocably damaging their tenuous relationship.  The mother begins the battle with an intent to change a disobedient child, and subsequently submits to a stronger will, an ironic twist on her struggle to bend Jing-Mei to her wishes.

The polarization in their relationship remains static, but Jing-Mei continues to grow.  When she returns to the piano after her mother’s death, Jing-Mei experiences a revelation.  The music she plays forms a contrast both in their names—“Pleading Child” and “Perfectly Contented”—and in their composition—one short and slow, the other fast and long.  The two contrasting songs reveal how far Jing-Mei matures.   They create a subtle extension of the theme via the changing state of Jing-Mei’s life, showing us “her childhood self and her grown-up self represent ‘two halves’ of the same person.” (Brent 3)  As a child, Jing-Mei pleads with her mother to let her become her own person; as an adult, Jing-Mei finds contentment in her individuality.  She realizes the struggle with her mother forged the serenity she feels in her life.

In summary, the wealth of contrasting images and events lends support to the irony in Jing-Mei’s mother’s mistaken beliefs.  She thinks Jing-Mei does not try to be the best she can; yet Jing-Mei works with all her might to be the best individual she is.  The mother holds to her conviction of Jing-Mei’s failures, but she fails to see her daughter’s success at finding and being true to herself.  In a broader context, Tan says our tendencies to mold our children into our ideal image of success often works against the universal struggle to find one’s identity.  Television, powerful advertising, clever marketing, and the myriad opinions of everyone we know swirl around us in a cacophony of conflicting messages, often drowning our pleas for time and space to get to know ourselves and find contentment in being what we are and not what someone else wants us to be.

Works Cited

Tan, Amy.  “Two Kinds”.  Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing.  Longman.  Boston.  10^th ed. 

Brent, Liz. "Overview of 'Two Kinds'." Short Stories for Students. Ed. Ira Mark Milne. Vol. 9. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 Apr. 2012. Document URL
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1420031606&v=2.1&u=tel_a_tbr&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w