The theme of this story is to make parents learn how to treat their children in a way that the children will succeed in life. We can see in the story that good children will disappoint their parents over and over, not because they're bad, but because they can only be who they are, themselves. In this essay I will discuss three elements from the story, plot, characters and setting.
The plot along the story begins by illustrating how determined Ni Kan's mother is to mold her only daughter into a child prodigy. "You can be prodigy too," (pag. 285) her mother constantly reminds her. First she wants her daughter to be a Chinese Shirley Temple, but she couldn't be because her hair is just too straight, that's why she got a peter pan look. Next she want her daughter to be a ballerina. After a while . She is required to take tests and memorize pointless trivia at the dinner table every night. After a short period of time Ni Kan can't stand it anymore. She is tired of being a prodigy. After two or three months her mother bought a piano for the house and made Ni Kan take piano lessons. Ni Kan hated playing the piano, and hated it even more because her mother forced her to learn. Ni Kan's mother made one last attempt to make her play the piano, and after a heated argument and Ni Kan's refusal, the piano was never brought up again. Ni Kan's failures continued throughout her lifetime. She was no genius, and she was far from perfect. She was just a normal girl. We can see that the connection between the plot and the theme make us understand that a mother is forcing her dotter to be someone in life. but her dotter refuses.
Ni kan and her mother are the two mail characters f the story. Ni kan was a young Chinese girl that was force from her mother to be a prodigy. In my opinion she was a girl that never wanted to try anything to get better in life. Her mother was a Chinese immigrant who came to America in 1949 after losing everything in china.