ENG102: English Composition II
October 12, 2009 ASSIGNMENT 6A
Outline:
I. Introduction – Thesis statement.
A. In “Everyday Use”, the issue of race is perceived and discussed differently in country and urban settings.
B. “Two Kinds”, demonstrate that parents have no control over their children’s lives; both authors describe a childhood conflict they can only show them the right direction and let them make their own decisions.
II. Body
A. Jing-mei’s early life, works , later years of life
1. Jing-mei mother persists with piano
2. Jing-mei can be a prodigy too.
3. “Only one kind of daughter, obedient daughter.”
B. Dee’s early life, works, later years of life.
1. Dee’s education
2. Dee’s considered herself as cultured
3. Dee is selfish and egotistical character with a superficial understanding of her inheritance.
III. Conclusion
A. Analytical summary
1. Jing-mei and Dee early life
2. Jing-mei and Dee works
3. Jing-mei and Dee Later years
B. Thesis reworded
C. Conclusion Statement.

Although mother-daughter conflicts are to be expected, the central conflict in the aforementioned relationship is a battle of wills between Jing-mei and her mother and Dee and her mother. For example, even though Dee's mother believes that quilts are for everyday use, Dee believes that they are cultural artifacts that must be preserved. Dee in “Everyday Use” and Ms. Johnson, her mother have major conflicting views that are similar to the identity conflicts that Jing-mei and her mother have. We observe moments of disappointment in both short stories. In “Two Kinds”, Amy Tan describes the numerous attempts that her overly ambitious Chinese mother made to propel her to stardom. Those attempts repeatedly despite the high expectations of her mother. Efforts to make her beautiful failed; instead of getting big curls, she came out with an uneven mass of crinkly black fuzz. Another effort to make her memory sharper also fails. She could remember just a few parts of a biblical passage. She cries and sees herself as ugly. In “Everyday Use”, Maggie usually stands hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, glancing at her sister, Dee, with a mixture of envy and awe. In each story there is a moment of ambition. In “Two Kinds”, the mother watches stars on T.V like Shirley Temple and tries all she could, to let her reserved daughter be like her. The mother contracts with a beauty training school to transform her daughter to resemble a star she had seen on T.V. The mother in her continuous quest to make a genius of her daughter put her through a series of mental and physical tests. In ‘Everyday Use’ the mother dreams of a day when her daughter Dee would become a public figure and she, the mother, would appear on T.V with her in order to showcase her love for the daughter for all and sundry to see. In each story, there is rebellion. In “Two Kinds”, Jing-mei rebels against her mother’s attempts to change her. She no longer wants her mother to make decisions for her. She tells her mother that she will never be the kind of daughter that her mother expects her to be. In “Everyday Use”, Wangero insisted on taking the quilt that her mother had reserved for her sister Maggie. No amount of persuasion from the mother would stop Wangero from having the quilts. She tries to justify her actions by saying Maggie would not appreciate the quilts and that she would be backward enough to put them to everyday use. All these sayings from Dee (Wangero) clearly point out how disobedient she was becoming to the mother. It took the intervention of Maggie to resolve this matter. In each story, the characters resort to things they did not like initially. In “Two Kinds”, the daughter of the Chinese mother, who did not like the piano lessons, not even the negotiation of the mother to do hard chores for a neighbour Mr Chong, in exchange for him to school her daughter on how to play the piano materialized. The daughter at a moment got on well with the piano lessons only to perform averagely at a show. The daughter then gives up totally on piano lesson only to receive the piano at her thirtieth birthday. Her interest is aroused how interesting piano-playing was in “Everyday Use”, Maggie enquires from the mother whether her sister, Dee ever had friends anyway. Mother answers that she had a few furtive boys who hang about on washday after school. She continues to say when Dee was courting Jimmy, she did not get enough time for him, rather she channelled all her faultfinding influence on him which led to their break-up. Surprisingly, Dee visits the house one day and she is in the company of a new boyfriend whose name is somewhat long and jaw-breaking and too strange for the liking of her sister and her mother. Mother and sister are very fascinated at the company but not surprised at Dee’s outfit, as usual she was overly dressed. Dee’s mother is thus compelled to nickname the boyfriend as Asalamakim for that was how he greeted them. In each story, there is a moment of oppression. In “Two Kinds”, the daughter expresses her dissatisfaction at her mother’s swelling influence and so she remarks that that she wishes she was either perished or that she had not been born at all. This stems from the fact that her mother consistently and persistently wanted her to tow the way she (the mother) sought after for her. The mother explains that there are two kinds of daughters she knows; those who are obedient and those who follow their own instinct but she (the mother) could only tolerate the obedient daughter in her house. In “Everyday Use”, the mother discovers that her daughter Dee is now called ‘Wangero Leewanika kemajo, by reason of her inability to bear with people who constantly oppress her. However, Wangero’s (Dee) mother goes through a long family lineage to trace the origin of the name Dee but she gets to a blunt end after two generations hitherto. Dee asserts that her mother could choose to call her by her new-fangled name but the mother insists on calling her by the former name. Interestingly also, Asalamakin had yet a tougher name but Dee’s family ended up calling him Hakim meaning a barber. Hakim happens to be a member of a family of a group of herdsmen but he does not rear the animals nor does he farm but he accepts some of their doctrines. Hence at the table, he did not eat collards and pork because he regarded them as unclean. Dee (Wangero) makes a series of requests from the mother she wants the benches that Uncle Buddy carved out of a tree and she also wants the dasher. The roles played by the mothers in the two stories are different. In “Two Kinds”, there is an overly ambitious Chinese mother who desires for her reserved daughter to aspire to stardom but the daughter relaxes despite the mother’s effort, the mother is influenced by what she sees. At a point she desired that her daughter becomes like Shirley. Consequently, she takes the daughter to a beauty training school. She realises that the child could not cope. Once again, she wanted her child to play piano after she watched a little Chinese girl play piano on a television show. In “Everyday Use”, the mother is not the type that put on her way on her children, the children (Maggie and Dee) did what she wished or wanted. Naturally, the mum was not the easy-going type especially she could not do so because of fear of racism. Dee however could look anyone in the face and speak her mind. Contrastingly, Maggie is not sociable and not ambitious too, she has much in common with the mother who sometimes resents her behaviour. The mother compares the two girls and says that whereas Dee is lighter and fearless and speaks her mind, she often tells the fairly stories usually told them at school and at times she generates her own stories too. Maggie knows she is not bright so she instinctively avoids discussing academics with the mother but the mother herself has no formal education. Maggie despite her short coming she is in a relationship and her mother hopes she would get married soon. On this issue, Dee became of her nature and kept friends who are outgoing and fashion conscious. Dee however cannot maintain a relationship like Maggie since her character and that of her fiancé’s were at par.