Two Kinds Amy Tan

Characterization

Quiz: Two Kinds

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

What city is the setting?

What is the name of the piano teacher?
Who is Auntie Lindo?
What piece of music does Jing-mei play for her recital?
What does Jing-mei say that finally ends the piano
lessons?
What gift do Jing-meis parents offer her at the end of
the story?
What was the second movement of the piece
Selections from Childhood?

Quiz: Two Kinds

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Whose haircut does Jing-meis mother force her to get?

On what show does the mother see the girl playing
piano?
What is the name of the piano teacher?
Who is Auntie Lindo?
What piece of music does Jing-mei play for her recital?
What does Jing-mei say that finally ends the piano
lessons?
What gift do Jing-meis parents offer her at the end of
the story?
To what does the title Two Kinds refer?

Definitions & Types of Characters

Characterization: The methods a writer uses to reveal the

personality of a character
Direct Characterization: The writer makes direct statements
about a characters personality.
Indirect Characterization: The writer reveals a characters
personality through the characters words and actions.
Round Characters show varied and sometimes contradictory
traits.
Flat Characters reveals only one personality trait.
A Stereotype (Stock Character) is a flat character of a familiar
and often-repeated type.

Indirect Characterization
(51) I began to cry.
The action suggests her dissatisfaction with
herself and her mother.
(50) You look like Negro Chinese.
- While the comment is DIRECTLY
characterizing Jing-mei, the comment itself
speaks to the abrasive, insensitivity of the
mother.

Direct Characterization
(51)

The girl staring back at me was angry,

powerful.
(52) Mr. Chong, whom I secretly nicknamed
Old Chong, was very strange, always tapping
his fingers to the silent music of an invisible
orchestra.

Types of Characters
Round

Character: Jing-mei Headstrong

(purposefully practices wrong notes) but
wants to be loved (surprised when the recital
goes poorly)
Flat Character: Old Chong Always simply a
deaf, old teacher who does not hear
Stock Character/Stereotype: Waverly Jingmeis nemesis

Protagonist & Antagonist

Protagonist: The central character around whom the action

usually revolves; the protagonist undergoes the main
conflict Jing-mei the audience empathizes w/ her
desire to be loved for herself and her rebellion against her
mother
Antagonist: A character or force that opposes the
protagonist and receives little or no sympathy from the
reader the mother generally the audience recognizes
the unrealistic mother trying to live vicariously through her
daughter
Pathos: the quality of a work that evokes emotion most
commonly sorrow, pity, or compassion

Symbols:
(55)

I was to play a piece called Pleading

Child, from Schumanns Scenes from
Childhood. It was a simple, moody piece that
sounded more difficult than it was.
(58) It was called Perfectly Contented. I tried
to play this one as well. It had a lighter melody
but with the same flowing rhythm and turned
out to be quite easy. after I had played them
both a few times, I realized they were two
halves of the same song.

Conflict & Theme:

Types

of conflict external (man vs. man, vs.

society, vs. nature, vs. supernatural) and
internal (man vs. self)
What type of conflict is present in Two
Kinds?
How does this contrast with Through the
Tunnel?