"A White Heron"
1. How do Sylvia's mother and grandmother describe her? How does Sylvia seem to see herself?
2. How does Sylvia react when she hears the hunter's whistle? What's the effect of Jewett'ssudden switch to the present tense here?
3. What does Sylvia have in common with the hunter? Why is she attracted to him?
4. What does she have in common with the heron? How does Sylvia's relationship with the heron contrast with the young man's relationship to the bird?
5. What is the significance of Sylvia's climb to the top of the pine tree? What does she see up there that she has never seen before?
6. Analyze the last paragraph. What has Sylvia gained, and what has she lost? What has she preserved?
Tan, "Two Kinds"
1.How would you describe the tone of the opening paragraph? How does it suggest that the reader should interpret the second paragraph?
2. What's the tone of the narrator's description of her childhood "imaginings" at the bottom of page 821? What does the next paragraph tell us about the source of these dreams?
3. Discuss the tone and implications of the following sentence from page 823: "She was proudly modest, like a proper Chinese child." How does Waverly's mother also display this quality on page 825?
4. What major characteristics about the narrator, Jing-Mei, are brought out in the story?
5. What is ironic about Jing-Mei's proclamation near the middle of 825: "And right then I was determined to put a stop to her foolish pride"?
6. Characterize the mother. Is she sympathetic? Why does the narrator's mother want her to excel at something?
7. How typical is Tan's story of the mother-daughter conflict?
Is the narrator right to ask her mother, "Why don't you like
me the way I am? I'm not a genius"?
Is the mother right to say, "Who ask you to be genius?. . . Only
ask you be your best. For you sake"?
8. The narrator says she doesn't try to learn the piano because she was determined "not to be anybody different." Does this sound believable? Why else might Jing-Mei have resisted all efforts to develop her talents?
9. What's the significance of Jing-mei's list of failures on p. 828? What does it mean to the narrator to "be me"?
10. What does the ending mean? In what way are "Pleading Child" and "Perfectly Contented" two halves of the same song? What changes does Jing-mei seem to have gone through by the end of the story, and what details suggest these changes?
11. At the story's end, how does Jing-Mei feel about her mother?