Essay --

Gish Jen’s â€Å"Who’s Irish and Amy Tan’s â€Å"Two Kinds† both entail two different stories with similar symbols and themes, these stories also demonstrate a vast amount of cultural differences. In â€Å"Who’s Irish† the Chinese grandmother has opposing views on her son-in-law and his inability to get a job, as well as how her granddaughter should be raised. â€Å"Two Kinds† depicts the lifestyle a Chinese mother is trying to create for her young daughter, as all she wants is for her to become a young piano prodigy and not waste the opportunity of the American Dream. Nonetheless they share several attributes that set them apart from each other as they exhibit parallel battles, characters and story lines. It is evident in the text that both mothers represent oppressive and authoritarian personalities which end up getting in the way of their relationships with their daughters. Given both narrators’ unique characteristics a nd continuous consistency of personalities the audience will be able to set them apart and understand the different cultures in which the narrator’s were raised. The narrator uses a vast amount of symbolism in â€Å"Who’s Irish† to vividly bring out the intended themes for the readers. Throughout the story the narrator could not understand why her daughter’s husband is so incompetent, and why he needs to be pampered. When the narrator uses the line, â€Å"plain boiled food, plain boiled thinking† (par. 13-14) she is expressing bigotry toward other cultures and their incompetence to understand what hard work really is. The symbolism here is being used to emphasize cultural difference that has ruled the working criteria of the American citizens. Consequently this is an example of how difficult is it for the narrator to accept other cultur... ...e two stories contrasts each other on their thematic use in the two stories. In ‘Two Kinds†, Jing- Mei is very stubborn and also very naive. It was through her character that she vehemently prevented herself from being an immense piano player which displays she has no desire to obey her mother’s wishes for her. In â€Å"Who’s is Irish† the situation is very different as the grandmother attempts to raise her granddaughter the way she was raised herself, the Chinese way. Lastly, we can distinguish that the theme and the symbolism in the two stories are very much interlinked, the narrators in both stories have clearly emphasized on their theme using symbolism. Symbolism in its own is a form of communication where the listeners will figure out the symbolic representative in relation to the narrative. Symbolism also demonstrates the narrative theme in the real world scenario.