Two Kinds (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Amy Tan
- First Published: 1989
- Type of Plot: Vignette
- Time of Work: The late 1980's
- Setting: San Francisco
- Principal Characters: Jing-Mei “June” Woo, Suyuan Woo
- Genres: Social realism, Short fiction
- Subjects: North America or North Americans, United States or Americans, Mothers, Parents and children, 1980’s, California, West, U.S., Asia or Asians, San Francisco, Pacific Northwest, Asian Americans, China or Chinese people, Chinese Americans
- Locales: San Francisco, CA
The Story
A young Chinese American woman, Jing-Mei “June” Woo, recalls, after her mother's death, her mother's sadness at having left her twin baby girls in China in 1949. June has used her mother's regret as a weapon in a battle of wills focusing on what her mother wants her to be and what she wants. June wins, leaving her mother, Suyuan, stunned when she says she wishes she were dead like the twins. Although this scene characterizes the common struggle for power between mother and daughter, the story also illustrates the cultural division between an Asian immigrant and...
[The entire page is 1443 words long]
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