A Mother/Daughter Conflict in Amy Tan's "Two Kinds" and "Best Quality".

Amy Tan's "Two Kinds" and "Best Quality" depict a struggling and often stressful relationship between a defiant daughter and an overbearing mother. June Mei and her mother Suyuan engage in a destructive battle between what is possible and what is realistic. June, although headstrong, seeks her mother's approval and adoration. Suyuan, although patronizing, yearns for her daughter's obedience and best qualities. The relationship between mother and daughter falls victim to tension inherent in any mother/…

…in antitheses and paradoxes. Joy and sorrow, love and hate, pleasure and pain, success and failure, guild and redemption are all inextricably intertwinced as part of the human experience, each making the alternative possible. Tan's "Two Kinds" and "Best Quality" reveals the human experience through a mother and daughter conflict going through two kinds of phases, a communicational and cultural barrier creating the conflict and the best qualities of one's identity healing a broken relationship.