Literary devices

TWO KINDS
AMY TAN
 Theme
• Parents cannot control their children future.
-Parents must guide children in making decision
but they don’t have any right to force them.
 Wary upon past scars.
• worried the same mistakes will be repeated.
 Conflict between Chinese culture and
American culture
• the culture gap between Chinese mother and
her American – born daughter.
 Simile
• ‘I was like the Christ child lifted out of the
straw manger…with sparkly cartoon music
filling the air.’
• ‘it was like a stiff, embraceless dance between
her and the TV set’.
• ‘I flt as though I had been sent to hell’.
 Hyperbole

• ‘I got so bored that I started counting the

bellows of the foghorns out on the bay while
my mother drilled me in other areas.
• ‘…cow jumping over the moon.’
 Chinese language

• ‘Ni Kan’
 Personification
• …play some nonsense that sounded like a dat
running up and down on top of gargafe cans.
• ‘…the sour notes staying with me all the way.’
 Self opinion.

• Two kinds deals with internal and external

conflict between the protagonist and the
antagonist of the story. The internal effort
which Jing Mei’s try to find in herself.
• Jing Mei struggles with the burden of family to
meet her mother expectations. She was never
sure of her decision because she was
overwhelmed by her mother hope.