Throughout life, we face many ups and downs that help define us. They shape us into the person we are. Finding our true identity can be very difficult for some people. This may be because other people in our lives are controlling us to become the person they want us to be. This is very evident in “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan. Jing-Me's mother becomes obsessed with turning her into something she is not; an American prodigy. In “The Things They Carried,” Lieutenant Jimmy Cross struggles to find his own identity. He's having trouble leading his men in the war because he hung up on a girl from New Jersey. In both short stories, Jing-Me and Lieutenant Jimmy Cross struggle to find their true identities as someone else takes control of their lives. In both cases, it takes a coming-of-age event for them to get together. In Amy Tan's "Two Kinds," Jing-Me's immigrant mother interferes with her Americanized lifestyle. His mother came to America after losing everything in China. She wants something to hold on to in her life. Jing-Me says: “America was where all my mother’s hopes rested” (Tan 3...