We learned of two mothers’ lives in the first two chapters of the book “The Joy Luck Club” and “Scar”.  In “Half and Half”, the story of An-Mei Hsu losing her son, Bing, we see how the events in her youth, with her mother as a concubine who cuts flesh from her arm for her mother, have shaped An-Mei as a mother.  In “Two Kinds” we see how Suyuan Woo, a mother who lost two children in China, pushes her daughter to be a prodigy because she only wants the best for Jing-Mei.

In a well-organized essay analyze how Amy Tan’s presentation of events in Half and Half and Two Kinds, suggests her attitude towards mother daughter, Chinese-American conflict.  You might consider such elements as narrative structure, selection of detail and motif (sacrifice, balance, honor, Chinese-American conflict), manipulation of diction, syntax and tone.

Remember to chunk quotations and add context (what is happening, when in the story does the quotation take place) and commentary (specific analysis of the quotation itself).  Do not say in the following quotation Amy Tan shows her powerful diction.  Rather, a central motif in Ying-Ying St. Claire’s life is fear.  As a child she was lost during the Moon Festival.  She remembers her childhood experience at the end of “The Moon Lady.”  “And I remembered everything that happened that day because it has happened many times in my life.  The same innocence, trust, and restlessness; the wonder, fear and loneliness.  How I lost myself.”  Tan’s diction reinforces the cyclical structure of the novel.  St. Claire has experienced ‘fear” and “loneliness” “many times in my [her] life.”  She passes this fear onto her daughter in Half and Half.