Two Kinds

Amy Tan chooses to frame this story from a significant narrative distance. The story’s plot takes place when Jing-Mei was a young girl, but she is telling it from the perspective of a woman in her mid-thirties. Compare this with the passage of time in another short story you have read. How did they each serve the narrative differently? List and explain potential reasons for Tan’s decision.

As one story amongst many that make up the linked short story collection of the Joy Luck Club, “Two Kinds” focuses on a particular aspect of the character of Jing-Mei. These characters drop in and out of focus; someone who may be a central figure in another story may find their perspective to be merely a peripheral one here. Why has Tan singled this memory out as significant to Jing-Mei’s character? What is this story doing for its narrator that another perspective could not have achieved?

“Two Kinds” is a character-driven story, setting up a strong, shifting power dynamic between Jing-Mei and her mother. What does this story reveal about the two generations of women? Find at least two points of contrast in the