Initiation: Two Kinds, The Garden Party, and Paul's Case

In Amy Tan's (1980) Two Kinds, Katherine Mansfield's (1922) The Garden-Party and Willa Cather's (1905) Paul's Case, we see, respectively, an epiphany occur in Jing-Mei, conflict between her own and her family values in Laura, and symbols substituted for manhood by Paul. Primarily, all three of these characters experience these situations because of a clash between their own perspective and values and those of others. In Jing-Mei's case it is conflict with her mother's domination and valuation of her. In Laura's case it is conflict between her values of others and the conflicting valuations of others held by her family. In Paul's case, there is conflict between his desires for respect and manhood in a social setting that oppresses these aspects in African American men. In all three characters, newfound understanding and consciousness result from their conflict over artificial valuations of self and other.

In Amy Tan's (1980) Two Kinds, we see that Jing-Mei is Chinese American, a daughter dominated by her Chinese mother. Her mother only seems to value Jing-Mei as a "possession," someone who is alive in order to compete with others to make her look good. She attempts to force Jing-Mei to accept the role she has defined for her, a musical prodigy so she can compete with her friend's daughter and show her up. This kind of artificial imposition of values and ambition on Jing-Mei causes her to have an epiphany, but the issue was painful enou

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