Jing Mei Rebels Against Her Mother example essay topic

In this essay, I will refer to three short stories. These stories are: "Through the Tunnel", Two Kinds", and "The Censors". The main characters are: Jerry of "Through the Tunnel", Jing-Mei of "Two Kinds", and Juan of "The Censors". In all three of these stories, the main characters are trying to achieve something.

Jerry tries to swim through an underwater tunnel. Jing-Mei wants to rebel against her mother, who wants her to become a child prodigy. Juan tries to find a letter he sent to his friend before "the censors " do. All of them try to achieve their goals using different methods.

Below you may read more about each individual character. Jerry is the main character in "Through the Tunnel". Jerry and his mother are on vacation near a beach. The reader gets the idea that it is somewhere in France because the "natives" are speaking in French. While at the beach, Jerry sees some boys diving into the ocean and coming back up.

At first he's not sure what they are doing, but then learns they are swimming through an underwater tunnel. He decides that he, too, would like to swim through the tunnel. He starts to practice keeping his breath and swimming. Eventually, he gets very good at both and decides to try to swim through the tunnel. After the second time of trying, he achieves his goal. he swims through the tunnel successfully one day before he and his mother go home. Jerry was very self-disciplined and achieved his goal.

He was the most successful of the three characters I will mention. For example, the story says". ... he would do it if it killed him... ". This shows how very dedicated he was to his goal. He realized the importance of his goal and worked hard to achieve it. Jing-Mei is in the story "Two Kinds".

She is a very stubborn girl who is always trying to rebel against her mother. Her mother, who formerly lived in China, has the opinion that a person can do anything they want in America. Therefore, she tries to make a child prodigy out of Jing-Mei. Jing-Mei is forced to try many different things including singing, dancing, piano, etc. Think the main reason that Jing-Mei rebels against her mother is because she (Jing-Mei) feels that her mother is trying to place her in a non-formal competition against Jing-Mei's cousin, Waverly. I said non-formal because its not a declared competition, it's just bragging that goes on between Jing-Mei's mom and Waverly's mom.

Jing-Mei's mom makes her play the piano, which is one thing that Jing-Mei does not like. In the story, which is in first-person format, Jing-Mei said that she sometimes". ... just played something that sounded like a cat running up and down on top of garbage cans". When Jing-Mei and her mother get in a fight, Jing-Mei says she wish she was never born. Overall, Jing-Mei didn't really accomplish much, yet her mother never gave up on her. Jing-Mei was definitely more successful than Juan, but not nearly as successful as Jerry. I think she would have been more successful in "rebelling against her mother" if she would have talked to her mother in a nice tone instead of yelling.

Juan from "The Censors" was definitely a hard-working person, but did not achieve his goal in any way. His goal was to find a letter he wrote this friend, Mariana. In his country, censors read all the outgoing letters to make sure there are no letters with hidden messages about overthrowing the government. After Juan sends Mariana a letter, he realizes that it may be misunderstood by the censors and he could be killed if they thought he was sending hidden messages.

He decides to try to get a job at the censorship office. They hire him and eventually raise his position to. The story says that". ... his work became so absorbing that his noble mission blurred in his mind". His noble mission is, of course, to find his letter to Mariana.

He becomes so obsessed with his job that when Mariana's letter finally reaches his hands, he censors it like all the rest of the letters. He is executed the next day. I feel that Juan was so obsessed with the power he gained from his job that he lost sight of his goal. He really did not succeed at anything. He was the least successful of the three characters mentioned in this essay.

All of these characters tried to achieve their goals. I learned that those who put the most time and effort into their goals do not always succeed. Juan put more time into his goal than anyone else, but was the least successful of the three. I think the main thing I learned is that even if you " re the hardest worker, you will not achieve your goal unless you also keep your priorities straight. We should never become so obsessed with power that we lose sight of our goals.

People should always work towards their goals and never let anything get in the way of them.