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TWO KINDS, STYLE, IRONY, CHARACTER, PLOT, CONTEXT, SYMBOLISM, POINT OF…
TWO KINDS
STYLE
VOCABULARY
Negro
: a member of dark-skinned group of peoples
Formica
: a hard durable plastic laminate used for countertops, cupboard doors, and other surfaces
Sonatas
: a composition for an instrumental soloist, often with a piano accompaniment
Frenzied
: wildly excited or uncontrolled.
Reverie
: a state of being pleasantly lost in one's thoughts; a daydream.
Hymns
: a religious song or poem of praise to God or a god
Carnation
: a double-flowered cultivated variety of clove pink, with gray-green leaves and showy pink, white, or red flowers.
Text structure is linear as all events appear in chronological order.
Text is written from a first person point of view of a young girl. This means there will be a clear difference in opinions, perspectives, and her understanding of things compared to teens & adults.
IRONY
Dramatic Irony
is present when Old Chong would "smile and applaud and say "Very good! But now you must learn to keep time!" (pg.4). Its ironic because since Old Chong is slow, he has no clue Jing-mei is playing terribly.
Verbal irony
becomes apparent when Jing-mei's father says "That was somethin' else," (pg.6). As instead of saying Jing-mei's performance was exceptional, the father means the complete opposite.
We see
Situational irony
when Jing-mei's mother offered to give her the piano for her thirtieth birthday. This piano was the main cause of conflict between Jing-mei as a child and her mother. However, the mother offers the piano as a sign of forgiveness, to ironically heal their relationship.
CHARACTER
The mother of Jing-mei is the
antagonist
as she opposes what Jing-mei wants.
As the
protagonist
, Jing-mei's goal was opposite to her mothers. The mothers goal was to turn Jing-mei into a prodigy, to be talented, and the best. "I hated the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations." (page.2). "I wont let her change me, I promised myself. I won't be what I'm not." (page.2). "I pretended to be bored, And i was... At last she was beginning to give up hope." (page.2).
The protagonists epiphany was when she realizes that Perfectly Contented and Pleading child were two halves of the same song (pg.8).
PLOT
The climax occurs during the talent show when Jing-mei plays her piece to the audience which her terrible play brought shame to her parents and disgust by the audience. That was the now the mother completely gave up on Jing-mei.
KEY MOMENTS
: As Jing-mei said, "I never really gave myself a fair chance." (page.4). She doesnt try to learn the piano and therefore, leads to the talent show disaster.
When the mother offers the piano as a sign of forgiveness causing Jing-mei to have a huge burden removed, the mother then tells her this "You could be a genius if you want to. You just not trying." (page 8.).
CONTEXT
Amy Tan was born and raised in California, USA. Her and her family moved to Europe after the passing of her father and younger brother. This circumstance may have influenced the mother daughter side of this story.
Amy Tans mother is a lot like the mother in the story, Amy had a difficult relationship with her mother, and also isolated herself from Amy after she dropped out of college
The mother also ran away from China leaving everything behind, her first husband, 2 daughters, her home, parents, Never looked back. While Amys mother had an abusive husband, 3 abortions, death to 2 of her children.
SYMBOLISM
The little Chinese girl the mother saw on TV symbolized what the mother wanted Jing-mei to be. "The girl had the sauciness of a Shirley Temple. She was proudly modest, like a proper Chinese Child. And she also did a fancy sweep of a curtsy, so that the fluffy skirt of her white dress cascaded to the floor like petals of a large carnation" (pg.3).
At the end of the story the Piano symbolized an offer of forgiveness for the mother "the offer as a sign of forgiveness," (page.8).
POINT OF VIEW
This story is written in a 1st person point of view from a young child..
The choice of first person point of view contributes to the readers experience by allowing us to understand her decisions, to understand why she did the things she did, it basically helps us to be empathetic towards her. "And after seeing, once again, my mother's disappointed face, something inside me began to die." (page.2).
CONFLICT
The type of conflict here is
CHARACTER VS CHARACTER
as the mother is forcing her beliefs onto her while Jing-mei rebels back.
The conflict was resolved, Jing-meis goal was to perform so terribly that her mother would cease all actions to turn her into a "prodigy" the great shame Jing-mei printed onto the parents after the talent show tragedy is a factor to why the mother gave up.
SETTING AND ATMOPSHERE
The story was written in 1989. The term "Negro" started to decline in the late 1960s and then was completely abandoned during the mid-1980s. We can infer that since the mother "had come to San Francisco in 1949" (page.1) and the story starts off with Jing-mei being 9 years old, that this story took place in the late 1960s.
CRITICAL THEORY
MARXIST THEORY
is present, we notice that Jing-mei's family is a lower social class, my evidence for this is "The TV was old and the sound kept shorting out." (page.2), "my mother traded housecleaning services." (page.3).