Girl's Mother example essay topic
431 words
Tan, Two Kinds and My mother's English At one point in most children's childhoods they are pressured by their parents to be something they don't really want to be, or do something they don't really want to do. Whether the pressure is in sports or intellectually, expectations to be the best can really get to a child. These pressures only increase as children grow older. I know that I always felt pressure just like the girl in the story. I felt the need to be the best. Not only for my own satisfaction, but also for my parent's satisfaction. Pressure can be placed on someone directly or indirectly. I think in my case it was usually indirectly. My parents never told me they expected me to come to college and maintain a GPA over a 4.0, but I just knew that if I didn't, they would be disappointed. In Two Kinds, the girl can't handle her mother's pressures that were directly enforced anymore, and makes the decision that she will not be what she's not, and that she would not let her mother change her. Eventually, after the girl purposely answered questions wrong and acted bored by her mother's antics, her mother finally began to give up hope. However, this did not last long.
Soon enough the girl's mother bought a piano for the house and made her take piano lessons. The girl hated playing the piano, and hated it even more because her mother forced her to learn, but more importantly, because she wanted her to play so bad. After a horrifying incident occurs in the story, the mother made one last attempt to make her play the piano, and after a heated argument and Ni Kan's refusal, the piano was never brought up again. The girl's failures continued throughout her lifetime. She was not a genius, and she was far from perfect.
She was pretty much just the same as the rest of us. She was who she was and there wasn't much she could do to change that. Tan's depiction of a mother / daughter relationship in Two Kinds is one I think most people can relate to. Maybe not to such an extreme extent, but I think most children have been pushed, or have known a friend that has been pushed way too hard. The fact that this story is easily relatable is one of the many reasons that made chose this as my essay topic.
