Comparison Between 'Joy Luck Club And Two Kinds'

For centuries many children have experienced the pressure of fulfilling their parents’ expectations or following in their footsteps. This pressure will oftentimes have a negative effect for the children of those parents. In the chapter of Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club, “Two Kinds,” the reader is introduced to Jing-mei, a young Chinese girl who wishes to become the prodigy that her mother wishes her to be. However, her constant disappointment in the many challenges her mother presents her causes her to lose hope and motivation. While, H.G. Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights chapter “Dreaming of Heroes,” the reader meets Don Billingsley, a young man whose father was a football legend in his hometown of Odessa, Texas. Don wishes for the fame that will
‘If you don’t hurry up and get me out of here, I’m disappearing for good,’ it warned, ‘And then you’ll always be nothing.’” (Two Kinds, 1). Her mother’s constant disappointment with her not being able to fulfill the challenges causes her to begin to lose the hope and optimism that she had the start. She states that “And after seeing, once again, my mother’s disappointed face, something inside me began to die” (Two Kinds, 2). Following this Jing-mei becomes determined to not try on any of the challenges. When her mother talks to her about becoming a piano player, she blames her mother telling her “‘Why don’t you like me for me the way I am?’… “I’m not a genius! I can’t play the piano.’” (Two Kinds, 2). She believes that her mother is trying to make her into something that she does not want to be and something that is out of her reach. In reality, her mother merely wants her to try her
While both Don and Jing-mei continue to be disappointed with mistakes in following in their dreams, Mike and Waverly are succeeding. In Don’s case, Mike has managed to make wonderful passes during the same game that Don continues to make fumbles in. The phrases “the ball plopped into Brown’s hands, a gift, an absolute gift, and he had a clear path down the left sideline” and “he [Don] had fumbled again, as if the ghost of Charlie caused the football to go bouncing like a basketball” (Dreaming of Heroes, 10) showing how different their performances were during their game. It is in this game that Mike is able to “unleash himself from the constant self-doubt that had entrapped him after the death of Billy” and perform well in contrast to Don’s fumbles that seem to come from “the ghost of Charlie” (Dreaming of Heroes, 10). In Jing-mei’s story, Waverly is a chess champion while Jing-mei struggles to find what she can excel at. However, while Don just seems to keep on making mistakes, Jing-mei was given a chance to prove herself, but she does not even try and gives up on the piano before even attempting because she feels that she will fail at it even if she does try. Jing-mei later realizes her mistake as she states, “So maybe I never really gave myself a fair chance…I might have become a good pianist at a young age. But