How does Tan contribute to the emotional effect in "Two Kinds"?

I have had to edit your question as you originally asked
more than one and also your question was not too clear. I have chosen out of the list of
topics you gave to focus on the emotional effect of this great
story.

Clearly, this story concerns a conflict between a
mother and a daughter. What makes this conflict more interesting or perhaps more
divisive is the fact that both characters have very different outlooks on the world.
Jing-Mei's mother is a Chinese immigrant to the United States, who has massive hopes for
her daughter, wanting her to be a "prodigy". Jing-Mei comes to resent the pressure and
the expectations her mother places on her, and as a second-generation Chinese immigrant
she is born in the United States and thus has a very different outlook on
life.

The conflict that occurs between these two characters
reaches its climax after Jing-Mei's ludicrous piano performance when she brings shame
upon herself and her family. Jing-Mei's mother's insistence that she continues to
practice brings about the most heated and emotionally intense argument they have
had:

"Too
late to change this," said my mother shrilly. And I could sense her anger rising to its
breaking point. I wanted to see it spill over. And that's when I remembered the babies
she had lost in China, the ones we never talked about. "Then I wish I'd never been
born!" I shouted. "I wish I were dead! Like
them."

Clearly this is a key
part where Tan uses the insults and the conflict between the daughter and the mother to
contribute to the emotional effect, as in their anger, both say things that are
incredibly hurtful to the other and words that will not be
forgotten.