The Joy Luck Club, Section 6: "Two Kinds"

Literary Term: Aboslute

I personally believe that the relationship between Jing-mei and her mother described in “Two Kinds” is by far the most intriguing and complex relationship developed in the novel. Despite the fact that Jing-mei and her mother, Suyuan, were very similar, their emotions, hopes, dreams, and personality traits were intertwined in such a way that they always seemed to clash in catastrophic ways. At first, both Suyuan and Jing-mei had high hopes of Jing-mei becoming a child prodigy; in fact, Jing-mei went as far as to use an absolute, or a word free from limitations or qualifications, when she confessed, “In all of my imaginings, I was filled with a sense that I would soon become perfect.” This statement reveals what was perhaps the biggest issue between Jing-mei and Suyuan: Suyuan had set too high a standard for Jing-mei. The truth of the matter was that Suyuan simply believed that, with a combination of Jing-mei’s natural abiliites and the promise of living in America, Jing-mei would be able to succeed at anything she tried. Conflict arose, however, because Suyuan did not articulate this love and confidence in Jing-mei in a way that Jing-mei could understand. When Suyuan made constant attempts to ascertain Jing-mei’s hidden talent, Jing-mei interpreted this to mean that Suyuan would accept nothing but perfection from her; consequently, Jing-mei became angry and could not understand why her mother could not accept her for who she truly was.

*While searching for Jing-mei's hidden talents, Suyuan first told Jing-mei that she could be a "Chinese Shirley Temple."


When Suyuan forced Jing-mei to take piano lessons, Jing-mei resolved almost immediately to never truly try to succeed. Looking back, Jing-mei later admitted that she had set herself up for failure, and it is for this reason that I believe Jing-mei used her decision to not try her best at playing the piano as a grand act of retaliation against her mother. I feel that the most important quote in this section is when Jing-mei says, “For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could only be me.” This quote is so effective because it shows that in an attempt to prove to her mother that she would be whoever she chose to be and not who she was made to be, Jing-mei channeled her resistance against her mother in a way that was harmful to herself. Jing-mei became so determined to prove Suyuan wrong that she convinced herself that she had to be mediocre to triumph over her mother. In this way, Jing-mei used mediocrity as a weapon and therefore set herself up for failure.

I personally believe that Jing-mei’s performance at the piano recital was highly symbolic of her internal struggle and the relationship that she had with Suyuan. As Jing-mei began to play her piece, she was very confident in herself and her abilities. As the music progressed, however, one bad note followed another until the entire song was a disaster. Jing-mei had the ability to make the piece beautiful, but before she was aware of what was happening, the song had become a jumble of notes that were not harmonious, and she was stuck in a pattern of repeating these mistakes throughout the song. In a similar way, Jing-mei and Suyuan, who were both very determined and similar, had the ability to have a beautiful relationship; however, they allowed themselves to be caught in a sea of miscommunications, faulty expectations, and relentlessness that kept them from existing harmoniously. They repeated these mistakes over and over until the entire relationship seemed beyond repair. As the years passed, however, I believe that both women came to understand their love for another; unfortunately, the tragedy remains in the fact that they never confessed this to one another. Because everyone is vulnerable to making the same mistakes that Jing-mei and Suyuan made, this story is relatable to almost anybody, and the lesson we must all take from “Two Kinds” is to let the people in our lives know how much they mean to us and accept them for exactly who they are.