Two Kinds

By Amy Tan ( 谭恩美 )

From The Joy Luck Club

The author

Amy Tan

About the Author

• Amy Tan ( 谭恩美 )

born in Oakland, California,1952, is an American writer whose works explore mother-daughter relationships and what it means to grow up as a first generation Asian American. Tan’s most popular fiction is The Joy Luck Club.

The Bonesetter’s Daughter( 接骨师的女儿 )

The Kitchen God’s Wife( 灶神之妻 )

The Hundred Secret Senses( 一百个神秘感觉 )

two books for children: The Moon Lady and The Chinese Siamese Cat.

About the author

• Both of her parents were Chinese immigrants.

• Her father, John Tan, was an electrical engineer and Baptist minister who came to America to escape the turmoil of the Chinese Civil War.

The miserable early life of her mother, Daisy, inspired Amy Tan’s novel The Kitchen God’s Wife.

About the author

• In China, Daisy had divorced an abusive husband. She was forced to leave her three daughters behind when she escaped on the last boat to Shanghai before the Communist takeover in 1949. Her marriage to John Tan produced three children, Amy and her two brothers.

About the author

• Tragedy struck the Tan family when Amy’s father and oldest brother both died of brain tumors within a year of each other. Mrs. Tan moved her surviving children to Switzerland, where Amy finished high school, but by this time mother and daughter were in constant conflict.

About the author

• Mother and daughter did not speak for six months after Amy Tan left the Baptist college her mother had selected for her and follow her boyfriend to San Jose City College. Tan further defied her mother by abandoning the pre-med course to pursue the study of English and linguistics.

About the author • She received her bachelor’s and master’s

degrees in these fields at San Jose State University. In 1974, she and her boyfriend, Louis DeMattei were married. They were later to settle in San Francisco

• DeMattei, an attorney, took up the practice of tax law, while Tan studied for a doctorate in linguistics, first at the University of California at Santa Cruz, later at Berkeley.

About the author

• By this time, she had developed an interest in the problems of the developmentally disabled. She left the doctoral program in 1976 and took a job as a language development consultant to the Alameda County Association for Retarded Citizens and later directed a training project for developmentally disabled children

About the author

• With a partner, she started a business writing firm, providing speeches for salesmen and executives for large corporations. After a dispute with her partner, who believed she should give up writing to concentrate on the management side of the business, she became a full-time freelance writer.

About the author

• Just as she was embarking on this new career, Tan’s mother fell ill. Amy Tan promised herself that if her mother recovered, she would take her to China, to see the daughter who had been left behind almost forty years before.

About the author

• Mrs. Tan regained her health and mother and daughter departed for China in 1987. The trip was a revelation for Tan. It gave her a new perspective on her often-difficult relationship with her mother, and inspired her to complete the book of stories she had promised her agent.

About the author

• Her most recent book, Saving Fish From Drowning explores the tribulations （艰难） experienced by a group of people who disappear while on an art expedition into the jungles of Burma.

The Joy Luck Club

• Amy Tan’s first and most successful novel.• The book comprises a series of short-story-like v

ignettes that move back and forth in time and space, between the lives of four Chinese women in pre-1949 China and their American-born daughters in California.

• It tells stories about four pairs of mothers and daughters-Suyuan Woo and Jing-mei(June); Anmei Hsu and Rose; Lindo Jong and Waverly; Ying-ying St. Clair and Lena.

The Joy Luck Club

• These stories are told by seven voices, those of the mothers and daughters except for Suyuan Woo, who is dead when the story begins in the book. The different points of view enable us to look at the bittersweet mother-daughter relations from different angles.

Joy Luck Club

• The mother and daughter treat one another cautiously, playing a game of love and fear, need and rejection. The older women, who suffered in Old China and emigrated to the United States with new hopes, are ambitious for their daughters, but while they expect them to succeed in America, they want them to remain Chinese. The daughters consider themselves American and regard their mothers a source of embarrassment, for they speak fractured English, behave with Chinese manners, and wear funny-looking dresses with high, stiff collars and slits up the sides. They want to be different from their mothers, and break loose from their mothers’ cultural gravity. They yearn to leave tradition behind

The Joy Luck Club

• The mother-daughter relationships are a mixture of love and hostility, expectations and disappointments, conflicts and reconciliation. When the daughters become older and more mature, they begin to reconsider their identity and reevaluate their cultural heritage. They discover that their mothers are “in their bones”, and that heritage is not something they can ignore and shake off easily.

Theme of Two Kinds

• THEME of Two Kinds: the mother’s attempt to change her daughter into a prodigy and the daughter’s resistance to such a change represent a bittersweet relationship between mother and daughter and a sharp conflict between tow generations and two cultures.

Characters in Two Kinds

• main characters (protagonist): the daughter by the name of Jing-mei (June), and her mother Suyuan ( 宿愿 in Chinese);

• minor ones: the girl’s father, Suyuan’s friend,--Lindo and her daughter—Waverly, the piano teacher Old Chong.

Two Kinds

• Part I- the beginning. Paragraph 1- 3

• Part II- the middle. Paragraph 4-76.

6 subsections.

• Part III- the end. Paragraph 77-93.

2 subsections.

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• Part I para. 1-3

Main idea→it tells about the mother and her hopes for her daughter. This paves the way for the development of the conflict between the daughter and the mother. These paragraphs show that the mother was very optimistic about the future, and in fact she was rather ambitious for her daughter.

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Language points:

1. You could buy a house with almost no money down. →You could buy a house without any down payment( 首付 ), that is, completely on loan.

Down: adverb. “in cash”( 付现款 ) e.g. You can pay five dollars down and the remainder in installments ( 分期付款 ).

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2. “ Of course you can be (a) prodigy, too.”

Prodigy n. →a young person who is extremely clever or good at doing sth. e.g. Mozart was a prodigy.

3. Family home.

here family is not redundant. In China, a family home is one where a big, extended family with three or more generations living together.

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• Part II Paras. 4-76

• Subsection 1 (Paras. 4-11)

Main idea: the mother’s unsuccessful attempt to change her daughter into a Chinese Shirley Temple.

At this point, the conflict was not visible because the child was as excited as the mother about becoming a prodigy.

Two KindsPurse v. →To gather or contract (th

e lips or brow) into wrinkles or folds; pucker. 使皱起，噘起聚拢或皱起（嘴唇或眉毛）

e.g. She pursed her lips with dislike.她不高兴地噘起嘴唇。

other usages: national purse 国库 Who holds the purse rules the hou

se. 有钱就有势。 A heavy purse makes a light heart.

[ 谚 ] 袋里有钱 , 心里不慌。

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2. She lamented, as if she had done this on purpose.

Lament v. →to lament is to express annoyance or disappointment about sth you think is unsatisfactory. To regret deeply; 非常懊悔；痛惜

e.g. He lamented his thoughtless acts. 他非常懊悔自己轻率的举动

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3. The instructor of the beauty school had to lop off these soggy clumps.

Lop off v.phr.: to cut a part of sth off, esp. a branch of a tree

Soggy adj.: unpleasantly wet and soft. e.g. The ground is soggy from the rain.

Clump n.: a group of trees, bushes or other plants growing very close together.

Here “lop off” and “clump” are used figuratively.

Peter Pan

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4. In fact, in the beginning, I was just as excited as my mother:

Her mother’s attempt to change her into a prodigy roused in her many fanciful ideas and made her quite excited.

5. I pictured this prodigy part of me as many different images, trying each one on for size:

I imagined myself as different types of prodigy, trying to find out which one suited me the best.

Two Kinds6. Beyond reproach =above reproach → So g

ood as to preclude any possibility of criticism. 无可指责，完美无缺

reproach 1)n.: blame 2) v. e.g. Do not reproach yourself, it was n

ot your fault. 不要责备你自己，这不是你的过错。7. Sulk v.: To be silently angery ； 闹别扭，生

闷气 e.g. When we told her she couldn't go with us,

she went and sulked in her room. 当我们告诉她她不能和我们一起去时，她回房间里生闷气了。

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Subsection 2 (para.12-20)Main idea: in this part, we can learn that the

mother was trying very hard to train her daughter to be a genius. As the tests got more and more difficult, the daughter lost heart. She said, “…sth inside of me began to die. I hate the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations.” She decided that she would not let her mother change her. This change of attitudes would lead to the gradual development of the conflict.

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Language points:

8.Multiply numbers in my head. 心算乘法9. Finding the queen of hearts in a deck (pack/set) of

cards: 在一副纸牌中找出红桃皇后来Hearts: suit( 同样花式的一组牌 ) of playing cards mar

ked with heart figures in red. Playing cards are arranged in decks of four suits: spades( 黑桃 ), hearts( 红桃 ), diamonds( 方块 ), and clubs( 梅花 ), with a total number of 52.

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10. Para. 19

1). What did the girl see in the mirror?

She looked at her reflection and saw an angry and powerful girl. She felt that the true prodigy side of her was a strong character and an independent mind.

2). What new thoughts did she have now? What did she decide to do?

She had new thoughts which were filled with a strong spirit of disobedience, rebellion. She decided not to cooperate with her mother’s plans.

Two Kinds3). I won’t let her change me, I promised myself…: The girl is asserting her self-identity. The idea of

“I’m what I’m. I’ll always be myself” reflects an aspect of American Individualism which is the most important part of American value. Growing up in America, the girl was inevitably influenced by this value. Obviously this notion of individualism is not in conformity with the traditional Chinese family education, which emphasizes the principle that the children should listen to their parents. After the girl made up her mind to resist change, the conflict between mother and daughter escalated.

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Subsection 3 (Para. 21-28)

Main idea:

While watching a Chinese girl playing the piano on an Ed Sullivan Show, a new idea flashed into the mother’s head. With the new plan introduced, the conflict would develop further.

Two KindsLanguage points:

11. Short out ： short-circuit 短路12. Para 21 is one of the fine examples showing how

the author uses simple but vivid impressive language in her depiction. When the sound of the TV set shorted out, the mother would get up from her seat to adjust the set. This action was repeated so many times that in the eyes of the child it was like a dance between her mother and the TV set. In her depiction, the author uses simple and small words like “up and down, back and forth, quiet and loud”.

Sound dial: a piece of equipment of an old-fashioned radio or TV set that you turn to adjust the volume of the sound.

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It was like a stiff embraceless dance between her and the TV set: 她和电视机好像上演了一段舞蹈，二者不相互拥抱，动作僵硬。

Two Kinds13. Para 22 entranced: very interested in and pleased with sth

so that you pay a lot of attention to it. e.g. He was entranced by the sweetness of her voice. 使狂喜，迷惑，着迷

mesmerizing: to mesmerize is to make someone feel that they must watch or listen to sth or someone, because they are so interested in it or attracted by it. 施催眠术 , 迷惑，吸引

e.g. He was mesmerized by her charm and beauty. tease: to make fun of; mock playfully. 取笑；开玩

笑地嘲弄 lilt: to say, sing, or play (something) in a cheerful,

rhythmic manner. 快轻的有节奏的说、唱或演奏

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• 13. Para 22: 她似乎被这音乐吸引住了。这钢琴曲不长，但有点狂乱，有着迷人的特点，乐曲一开始是快节奏的，接着是欢快跳动的节拍，然后又回到嬉戏的部分。

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• 13. Para 24: pound: to strike vigorous, repeated blows 连续重击猛烈连续地打击

e.g. He pounded on the table. 他连续地重重击打桌子

saucy: Impertinent in an entertaining way;调皮的，顽皮的 . sauciness. n. impertinence; rudeness in an amusing way.

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curtsy: n. curtsy is a gesture of respect or reverence made chiefly by women by bending the knees with one foot forward and lowering the body. 屈膝礼一种主要由妇女做的表示尊重或恭敬的动作，弯曲双膝，一脚向前迈并使身体下坐 v. to make a curtsy. 行屈膝礼

fluffy: Light and airy; soft 轻柔的；蓬松的，松软的 fluffy curls 松软的卷发。

cascade: v. To fall or cause to fall in or as if in a cascade 泻落瀑布似的或使瀑布似的下落

ream: often reams, a very large amount of writing on paper. 大量极其多的量 e.g. He showed me reams of notes he had taken.

bad-mouth: informal. Esp. AmE. To find fault with, to criticize or disparage, 说…的坏话 , .苛刻批评 e.g. His former colleagues accused him of bad-mouthing them in public.

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Para 25In spite of these warning signs, I wasn’t worried.What were the warning signs?The girl had so many similarities with the narrator

that she should have known what her mother was thinking about: if that Chinese girl could be a Shirley Temple-like prodigy, why not her own daughter? Watching that girl’s performance, the mother had a new idea-to make her daughter learn piano. The narrator saw those warning signs, but she was not worried. The reason is explained in the following sentences.

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Pick on sb.: to blame someone for sth, especially unfairly, e.g. Why does the boss always pick on me?

Sound dial: dial is the control on a radio or television set that is used for tuning.

Encore: An additional performance in response to the demand of an audience.应观众要求而加演的节目

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Subsection 4 (para 29-46)Main idea: It tells about how the girl was made to lear

n the piano under the instructions of Old Chong. The girl hated the piano lessons because she didn’t want to be sb. she was not. The relationship between mother and daughter was getting more and more tense. When her mother was using her in competing with Auntie Lindo, she could not put up with her mother any more, and she decided to put a stop to “her foolish pride”. What was she going to do? That naturally arouses our expectation. With this anticipation, we continue our reading into the next part.

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My mother had traded housecleaning services for weekly lessons…until six.

My mother would do housecleaning for Mr. Chong. As a form of payment for her services, she got free weekly piano lessons and a piano for her daughter to practice on every day, two hours a day from four until six. At this stage, the little girl was too young to appreciate the efforts and sacrifice her mother had made for her.

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Whined: I complained in a sad and annoying voice.

My mother slapped me: this tells us two things: first, the mother was rather quick tempered. Secondly, we are reminded that she was a Chinese mother. American parents would have hesitated to use physical punishment in dealing with their children.

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Keep time: to play a piece of music using

the right rhythm and speed.保持正确的节奏If she had as much talent as she has

temper, she would be famous now.

如果她的才气和脾气一样大的话，她早就出名了。

Two KindsSubsection 5 (para. 47-60)Main idea: Jing-mei was to perform in a talent show h

eld in the church. This was a good opportunity for parents to show off their talented children to their friends. Jing-mei started all right and soon made a mess of her performance. Undoubtedly this was a heavy blow to her mother. The girl expected angry accusations from her mother. To her surprise as well as disappointment, nothing happened when they got home. As readers we can’t help wondering what this silence means. We feel a storm is imminent. If we think of the story in terms of the five stages mentioned before, then our guess is that the crisis or the climax is about to come.

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Old Chong and my mother conspired to have me play…in the church hall.

Conspire: it reveals the narrator’s relationship with her mother: they were opponents of the sharp conflict. It means to plan sth harmful or illegal together secretly, e.g. He had conspired with an accomplice to rob the bank.

A talent show: is a competition in which people show how well they can sing, dance, tell jokes, etc.才艺表演

It was the only showpiece of our living room. 这是我家起居室的唯一摆设（陈列品）。

Dawdle: To take more time to do sth. than necessary浪费时间

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The part I liked to practice best was the fancy curtsy…and smile.

我最喜欢练习的部分是花哨的谢幕行礼动作：先出右脚，脚尖点在地毯上的玫瑰图案上，身子侧摆，左腿弯曲，抬头，微笑。

Debut: a first appearance in public as of an actor.

Two KindsThey recited simple nursery rhymes, squawked outtunes…enthusiastically.他们背诵简单的童谣，用微型小提琴拉出又粗又响的

调子，跳呼啦圈舞，穿着粉色的芭蕾舞短裙蹦蹦跳跳。当他们鞠躬行礼时，观众同声发出“啊，啊”的赞叹，然后热烈地鼓掌。

Squawk: to utter a loud sound, harsh cry, as a parrot or chicken.

Prance: to rise up on the hind legs in a lively way while moving along:

This is it: this is the chance for my prodigy side to come out.

Two KindsI looked out over the audience, at my Mother’s blank

face…Waverly’s Sulky expression. Here the narrator saw four people with four differ

ent facial expressions. The mother had a blank face because her feelings at this moment were mixed. She had high hopes and expectations and she was nervous, too. Whatever she felt she must hide her feelings. Her father yawned, showing he didn’t care so much as the mother and he was bored by this children’s activity. Auntie Lindo’s stiff-lipped smile revealed that she tried to put on a polite smile but only succeeded in an awkward, unnatural smile. Obviously she was afraid that Suyuan’s daughter’s success might overshadow her own daughter. Waverly, being a child, failed to hide her unhappy feeling very well.

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A chill started at the top of my head…switching to the right track.

一股凉气从头顶开始，然后一点点的传到全身。但我却不能停止演奏，双手好像着了魔似的。我不停的想，我的手指会调整好，就像火车会被扳到正确的轨道上。

Bewitch: to get control over someone by putting a magic spell on them.

I played this strange jumble …all the way to the end.Jumble: an untidy mixture of things, e.g. These notes

recorded a jumble of thoughts and feelings.Sour notes: notes that are gratingly wrong or off pitch.

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But when I saw my mother’s face.

1). When I saw my mother’s face, I knew that was not mere illusion: I really gave a awful performance. Otherwise my mother’s face would not be looking so painful and distressed.

2).stricken:(formal)afflicted or affected by sth painful or distressing; very badly affected by trouble, illness, etc. e.g. He had to live with a stricken conscience for the rest of his life.

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Anchor: an anchor is a heavy object, usually a

shaped iron weight, lowered by cable or chain to

the bottom of a body of water to keep a vessel

from drifting. To anchor sth means to keep sth

from drifting or giving away, etc. by or as an

anchor; to fasten sth firmly so that it cannot move.

My parents remained firm in their seats

throughout the show, probably out of pride and

some strange sense of honor.

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…juggled flaming hoops while riding a unicycle.Juggle: to keep three or more objects moving through the air by throwing them very quickly.Unicycle: a one-wheeled vehicle straddled by

the rider who pushes its pedals.Uni-:(prefix), one, having or consisting only on

e e.g. unicorn, unicellular, unilateral, bicycle, tricycle

Juggle flaming hoops while riding a unicycle

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Subsection 6 (Para. 61-76)

Main idea: the girl assumed that her failure at the show meant that she would never have to play the piano. Yet tow days later her mother urged her to practice as usual. She refused and the mother insisted. They had the most fierce quarrel they had ever had. This is the crisis of the story when the plot reaches a point of the greatest emotional intensity.

Two KindsI assumed my talent-show fiasco…play the piano again.Since my talent show ended in a ridiculous failure, I t

ook it for granted that my mother had given up on me and would not make me play the piano again.

I wedged myself more tightly in front of TV.1) I pushed myself more tightly in front of TV (to sho

w her reluctance to go away for the piano practice).

2) A wedge is a piece of wood, metal,etc. that has on thick edge and one pointed edge and is used esp. for keeping a door open or for splitting wood. To wedge is to force sth firmly into a narrow space.

Two KindsBudge: to move or stir slightly, (略为 )挪动，微微移

动 , To alter a position or attitude改变立场或态度I wasn’t her slave. This wasn’t China: in her mind, a

daughter was as obedient as a slave in China. She

regarded herself as an American and was determined not to be a Chinese daughter. This shows that this mother-daughter conflict was not only between two generations but also between two cultures.

She was the stupid one: she was to blame for what

happened at the talent show. She was the one who

caused the ridiculous failure.

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I saw her chest heaving up and down in an angry way.

1). I saw her breathing hard in great anger.

2). To heave means to swell up, bulge out; to rise and fall rhythmically

“No!" I said, and I now felt stronger, as if my true self had finally emerged:

This “no” signifies disobedience and rebellion. Her true self had finally emerged and she found strength in her true identity.

Two KindsOnly two kinds of daughters. Those who are obedie

nt and those who follow their own mind…obedient daughter.

只有两种女儿：顺从听话的和自行其事的。这个家里只能有顺从听话的女儿。

These words clearly reveal the mother’s firm belief in parental authority. Her traditional Chinese views convinced her that her daughter should listen to and obey their mothers’ commands. She was aware that American daughters were not obedient. She wanted her daughter to have a Chinese character in the American circumstances.

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It felt like worms and toads and slimy things crawling… had surfaced, at last.

1)When I said those words, I felt that some very nasty thoughts had got out of my chest, and I was scared. But at that time I felt good and relieved, because those nasty things had been suppressed in my heart for a long time and now they got out at last.

2) Simile is used to describe her feelings vividly. Peter Pan, Cinderella and nursery rhymes are all examples that show how the author uses a child’s point of view successfully.

3) slimy: covered with a thick slippery substance that looks or smells unpleasant.

Two KindsAnd I could sense her anger rising to its breaking poi

nt…it spill over.

1) I could feel that her anger had reached the point where her self-control collapsed, and I wanted to see what my mother would do when she lost control of herself.

2) Breaking point: the point at which one’s endurance, self-control, etc. collapse under trial.

Alakazam: is part of a series of names. A magician says abra, kadabra, and alakazam, and a miracle will happen.

Two Kinds…and her face went blank, her mouth closed…a sma

ll brown leaf, thin, brittle, lifeless.1) 她的脸部失去了表情，嘴巴紧闭，双臂无力地垂

下。她退出了房间，神色惊异，好像一小片枯黄的树叶被风吹走，那样单薄，脆弱，毫无生气。

2) What would one expect the mother to do when her daughter said those terrible words? She could fly into a great rage and probably she would punish the daughter for being so ungrateful. Maybe she would scold and slap her. After all she was a quick-tempered woman, and she had scolded and slapped her daughter before for less sufficient reasons. Yet nothing of the sort happened. She said nothing and did nothing.

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…and her face went blank, her mouth closed…a small brown leaf, thin, brittle, lifeless.

1) What magical effect did those words produce? Those words were like magic words, transforming the mother, in a flash of second, from a frightening strong woman into a silent, stunned and helpless woman like a small thin leaf blown away. She looked as if she had been defeated by an invisible enemy.

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Part III (Para77-93)

This concluding part is narrated from a different

point of view. Now the daughter had grown up

from a little girl to a mature woman. This part is

divided into two subsections.

Subsection 1 (Para 77-89)

Main idea: the clash between mother and

daughter subsided. They stopped quarrelling and

made peace with each other.

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Language points:In the years that followed, I failed her so many times…I dropped out of college.1) These sentences sum up what happened

in the many years that passed between the time when the daughter was a small child and when she was thirty. Although this part is still narrated by the daughter, now she had grown up to be a mature woman. While the narrator remains the same, the viewpoint has shifted.

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2) I failed her so many times: this is

explained by the next sentences: I didn’t get straight As. I didn’t become class president. I didn’t get into Stanford. I dropped out of college.

3) Fall short of expectations: to fail to meet the expectations.

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The lid to the piano was closed, shuttingout the dust, my misery, and her dreams.When the lid to the piano was closed, it shut out the dust and also put an end to my misery and her dreams.“No, this your piano. Always your piano. You only one can play.”No, this is your piano. It has always been

your piano. You are the only one who can play.

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“You could been genius if you want to.”

You could have been a genius if you had

wanted to. After so many years, this is the first

time that the mother said such encouraging

words to the daughter. These words show that

the mother knew her daughter very well. She fully

recognized her natural talent and clearly knew

that she did not want to try her best.

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And she was neither angry nor sad.This calm tone shows that she had completely reconciled (bring herself to accept) herself to the reality.And after that, every time I saw it…I had won back.1) The bay window: a window or set of windows jutting out from the wall of a building and forming an alcove within, usually with glass on three sides.

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2) Why did the daughter feel proud and see the

piano had become a symbol. When she was

forced to learn to play it, it was a symbol of her

misery and her mother’s dreams. When her

mother offered it to her for her thirtieth birthday,

the offer meant forgiveness and reconciliation.

Now she heard her mother praising her. Her

mother’s appreciation was like a trophy that she

had won at long last.

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Subsection 2 (Para 90-93)

Main idea: it is narrated a few years later after the previous scene. Now her mother had died. This part not only brings the story to its end but also contains an epiphany, a moment of discovery, insight, and revelation, by which the narrator’s view is altered.

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Language points:

Tuner: a person who tunes musical

instrument ( a piano tune) 调音师Recondition: to put back in good condition

by cleaning, or repairing.

All the colors I hated: the colors were too bright, loud for a refined, sophisticated taste.

Moth-proof: treated chemically so as to repel the

clothes moths. Waterproof boots, bulletproof cars

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I rubbed the old silk against my skin…take

them home with me.

What the girl did has symbolic meanings. It

tells us that she loved and missed her

mother and she decided to keep those

typical Chinese dresses as part of her

Chinese heritage.

Two Kinds

And for the first time, or so it seemed, I noticed the piece…longer, but faster.

1)第一次，或好像感觉是第一次，我注意到右边的乐曲。它的名称是“心满意足”。我也试着弹这首曲子。它的曲调比较轻松，但节奏同样流畅，不是很难。“祈求的孩子”较短、较慢，而“心满意足”更长，更快一些。

2)Or so it seemed: since she practiced “Pleading Child” so often she must have seen the other piece on the right-hand side, but at that time with all her attention concentrated on “Pleading Child”, she simply didn’t notice it.

Two Kinds

And after I played them both a few times, I

realized they were two halves of the same

song.

1) 在我弹了几遍后，我意识到，原来这两个曲子是同一首歌的两个组成部分。

2)What did the narrator mean when she said they were two halves of the same song? Why does the author end the story this way?

Two KindsThe last sentence is very meaningful. At this

stage, the narrator was able to see that her childhood was made up of two sides. Although there were unhappy moments, on the whole, it was filled with perfect happiness. The titles of the two different piano pieces are clearly suggestive. When she was a little girl, she only saw one side of her childhood. She couldn’t understand her mother, regarding her mother’s hopes and expectations as tormenting pressure that only brought misery to her. So she saw

herself as a pleading child.

Two Kinds

Now as she realized how her mother loved

and appreciated her, she felt perfectly

contended. This last sentence is significant

because it contains the narrator’s

epiphany(领悟，顿悟 ), a moment of insight,

discovery or revelation, by which the

character’s view is greatly altered.

The Joy Luck Club

Thank You

Homework

• Point of View of Two Kinds

• The Character of Jingmei in Two Kinds

• A Mother’s Dream for Her Daughter

• Rebellion in Two Kinds

• Parental Control Vs Guidance in Two Kinds

• Mother-daughter Relationships in Two Kinds

• Internal and External Conflict: Amy Tan’s Two Kinds