Two Kinds – Amy Tan

1. Two Kinds – Amy Tan Characterization

2. Quiz: Two Kinds • What city is the setting? • What is the name of the piano teacher? • Who is Auntie Lindo? • What piece of music does Jing-mei play for her recital? • What does Jing-mei say that finally ends the piano lessons? • What gift do Jing-mei’s parents offer her at the end of the story? • What was the second movement of the piece “Selections from Childhood”?

3. Quiz: Two Kinds • Whose haircut does Jing-mei’s mother force her to get? • On what show does the mother see the girl playing piano? • What is the name of the piano teacher? • Who is Auntie Lindo? • What piece of music does Jing-mei play for her recital? • What does Jing-mei say that finally ends the piano lessons? • What gift do Jing-mei’s parents offer her at the end of the story? • To what does the title “Two Kinds” refer?

4. Definitions & Types of Characters • Characterization: The methods a writer uses to reveal the personality of a character • Direct Characterization: The writer makes direct statements about a character’s personality. • Indirect Characterization: The writer reveals a character’s personality through the character’s words and actions. • Round Characters show varied and sometimes contradictory traits. • Flat Characters reveals only one personality trait. • A Stereotype (Stock Character) is a flat character of a familiar and often-repeated type.

5. Indirect Characterization (51) I began to cry. • The action suggests her dissatisfaction with herself and her mother. (50) “You look like Negro Chinese….” - While the comment is DIRECTLY characterizing Jing-mei, the comment itself speaks to the abrasive, insensitivity of the mother.

6. Direct Characterization • (51) The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful. • (52) Mr. Chong, whom I secretly nicknamed Old Chong, was very strange, always tapping his fingers to the silent music of an invisible orchestra.

7. Types of Characters • Round Character: Jing-mei – Headstrong (purposefully practices wrong notes) but wants to be loved (surprised when the recital goes poorly) • Flat Character: Old Chong – Always simply a deaf, old teacher who does not hear • Stock Character/Stereotype: Waverly – Jing-mei’s nemesis

8. Protagonist & Antagonist • Protagonist: The central character around whom the action usually revolves; the protagonist undergoes the main conflict – Jing-mei – the audience empathizes w/ her desire to be loved for herself and her rebellion against her mother • Antagonist: A character or force that opposes the protagonist and receives little or no sympathy from the reader – the mother – generally the audience recognizes the unrealistic mother trying to live vicariously through her daughter • Pathos: the quality of a work that evokes emotion – most commonly sorrow, pity, or compassion

9. Symbols: • (55) “…I was to play a piece called “Pleading Child,” from Schumann’s Scenes from Childhood. It was a simple, moody piece that sounded more difficult than it was. • (58) “It was called “Perfectly Contented.” I tried to play this one as well. It had a lighter melody but with the same flowing rhythm and turned out to be quite easy. …after I had played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.

10. Conflict & Theme: • Types of conflict – external (man vs. man, vs. society, vs. nature, vs. supernatural) and internal (man vs. self) • What type of conflict is present in “Two Kinds”? • How does this contrast with “Through the Tunnel”?