The Conflict and Inheritance in Two Kinds

Amy Tan’s book plays an important role in the history of American or world’s literature. The common themes of her works impress people deeply because the wonderful conflicts and meaningful sentences. Two kinds is a short story of her works, and it has a great research value about the relationship of past and present. More and more scholars and sociologists believe that the past is important for shaping individual identity in the present. In other words, the past can teach present a special lesson because of its experience. And in Tan’s work, the relationship between past and present can be expressed as conflict and inheritance.

There are many conflicts between the past and the present when the past teach present a lesson. In the story Two Kinds, the mother was born and educated in old China, so she represented the Chinese culture and traditional value, but the daughter was born and grew up in America, so she had the new value outlook and influenced by American culture. In a way, their conflicts in some aspects of life could not be avoided. Just like people live in the present, the parents have the old thoughts, but the children don’t think like their parents, the conflicts can’t stop. However, the reason of these conflicts is the same one: the parents want to use their experience to help children live better in the future and shape the children’s good individual identity. In Tan’s story Two Kinds, there is a sentence showing that “I won't let her change me, I promised myself. I won't be what I'm not” (Amy Tan 2).From it, it is easy to find that the conflict is that the mother wanted to use her thought and experience to shape the girl’s individual identity and future, but the girl refused this, and she just wants to be the one she liked. In other words, many children can’t understand the parents’ well-intention when they are young, what’s more, they think the past is not fit for the future, and many thoughts of their parents are out of fashion. Even they think that the parents can’t understand them well, so the conflicts happen more and more. However, when the people grow up, they will find that the experience and advice of past can lead them to improve themselves and be good for shaping the individual identity. The past can teach people a lesson because people can learn the experience of failure and avoid making the same mistake. In short, the past is the precious property of shaping the characters in the present although it can be accompanied with the conflicts.

On the other hand, the special relationship between past and present is inheritance. There is no doubt that the children are the inheritance of their parents. Similarly, the present is the inheritance of past. For example, in the story Two Kinds, the mother’s individual identity was shaped by her background in the past, “after losing everything in China: her mother and father, her home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls”(Amy Tan 1). It is the best explanation that why the mother felt failing about herself and has great hope that her daughter can make her dream come true. It means that everyone’s past can shape his or her thoughts in the future or influences the development of people individual identity. In other words, the characters in the present are the inheritance of experience in the past.

Every successful work has its literary tools and characters, so Two Kinds also has some wonderful characters. Tan uses several literary tools to express her points on the relationship between the past and present. And the first tool is setting. Tan use this historical setting to show her main point completely. As is known to all, the setting has three factors: place, time and physical objects. In this story, historical setting means that when the story happened, and it leads to the happening of the conflict between the past and the present, the same with the mother and daughter. At the beginning of this story, it says that “America was where all my mother's hopes lay. She had come to San Francisco in 1949” (Amy Tan 1). It can make people understand that why the mother determined to help their daughters avoiding repeating her mistakes in the present. So this literary tool-setting can show the theme of work and help people understand the relationship between past and present well.

Another literary tool in this story which is used well is a metaphor. For example, there is a sentence “Such a sad, ugly girl! I made high - pitched noises like a crazed animal, trying to scratch out the face in the mirror” (Amy Tan 2). Because of this lively description, people can understand the daughter’s mind correctly and feel the conflict truly; the girl doesn’t want to be the person who her mother hopes. And the conflicts between the past and present always exist and push the relationship developing all the time. In other words, metaphor as a literary tool in this novel can present that how the past influence the character shaping in the present.

From the story of Two Kinds, people can learn that there is a complicated relationship between the past and the present which can be described as conflict and inheritance. The conflicts are the powers to encourage current people to learn experience from the past and the inheritance means that the past can influence people a lot in the present. And Tan use many literary tools to help people understand her theme well. However, all the conflicts and inheritance explain that the past plays an important role in shaping individual identity in the present.