Compare & Contrast Blue Winds Dancing and Two Kinds
Essay Comparing and Contrasting “Two Kinds” vs. “Blue Winds Dancing”
While both of these stories have different themes regarding cultural issues, the characters involved similarly have their own reasons that compel them to oppose their individual situations. In Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds” and in Tom Whitecloud’s “Blue Winds Dancing”, both narrators choose nonconformity regarding their unique situations, but have different motivations for doing so.
In “Two Kinds”, the narrator struggles to be the ideal daughter that her mother wishes her to be. Having come from China where she had lost her home and her entire family, including her first two daughters, her mother places a huge burden of becoming famous and successful on the narrator. The opening paragraph of this story, quite plainly, tells of the mother’s lofty goals for her daughter. “My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get good retirement. You could buy a house with no money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous” (Tan 180).
After failing to master many different talents to ultimately become the prodigy her mother wishes her to become, the mother enrolls her in piano lessons and buys her a piano. The narrator deliberately fails to learn the piano as an act of defiance against her mother. She publically humiliates her mother at a talent show where she plays terribly. She purposely fails to live up to her mother’s expectations of her. She knows she cannot possibly conform to her mother’s dreams for her, so she decides that rebellion is her only choice.
In Tom Whitecloud’s “Blue Winds Dancing”, the narrator is a Native American living in the western United States. It is here while attending college that he learns that he will never fit into white culture. Having gone off to college and attempting to conform to white society, the narrator feels as if he has rebelled against his own
While both of these stories have different themes regarding cultural issues, the characters involved similarly have their own reasons that compel them to oppose their individual situations. In Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds” and in Tom Whitecloud’s “Blue Winds Dancing”, both narrators choose nonconformity regarding their unique situations, but have different motivations for doing so.
In “Two Kinds”, the narrator struggles to be the ideal daughter that her mother wishes her to be. Having come from China where she had lost her home and her entire family, including her first two daughters, her mother places a huge burden of becoming famous and successful on the narrator. The opening paragraph of this story, quite plainly, tells of the mother’s lofty goals for her daughter. “My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get good retirement. You could buy a house with no money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous” (Tan 180).
After failing to master many different talents to ultimately become the prodigy her mother wishes her to become, the mother enrolls her in piano lessons and buys her a piano. The narrator deliberately fails to learn the piano as an act of defiance against her mother. She publically humiliates her mother at a talent show where she plays terribly. She purposely fails to live up to her mother’s expectations of her. She knows she cannot possibly conform to her mother’s dreams for her, so she decides that rebellion is her only choice.
In Tom Whitecloud’s “Blue Winds Dancing”, the narrator is a Native American living in the western United States. It is here while attending college that he learns that he will never fit into white culture. Having gone off to college and attempting to conform to white society, the narrator feels as if he has rebelled against his own
Cited: Roberts, Edgar V., ed. Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008. Print. Tan, Amy. “Two Kinds.” Roberts 180-87. Whitecloud, Tom. “Blue Winds Dancing.” Roberts 269-73.