Chang-rae Lee: "Coming Home Again Analysis

“But after weeks of pork parmigiana and chicken patties and wax beans, I suddenly realized that I had lost all the savor in my life. And it seemed I couldn’t get enough of it back. I ate and I ate, so much and so fast that I actually went to the bathroom and vomited. I came out dizzy and sated with the phantom warmth of my binge” (4).

            I like this quote because I think that it represents the narrator’s position in his life at that point, and the struggle that he was enduring. Having gone away to school, he had to try to completely immerse himself into a life with which he was pretty unfamiliar. At home, his main culture was a Korean- focused one and he was fine with that while he was there. Lee enjoyed learning about Korean cooking from his mother, and the language was often spoken in the house. However, his content attitude towards his family and their lifestyle, mainly that of his mother, changed once he was sent to boarding school. From here on out, he had to introduce American culture into his schema in order to fit in with his classmates and eventually become successful. It is not easy to balance living two separate lives, and this idea is reflected upon in this quote. Lee’s realizing how much he missed the food that he enjoyed so much is representative of his understanding of how different he had become since going off to school. While he enjoyed his time at school, I think that this quote captures the idea that he did not realize how much he missed his own life until he was brought back into it, completely and fully immersed once again. He says that he realized he missed all the “savor” in his life: although going to school obviously had its perks, it would never compare to his life at home with his family and the culture that he was a part of there. However, Lee soon realizes that simply eating all that food, or trying to completely dive back in to his own life, does not make it possible to get his old life back. His own body rejects his efforts to completely immerse himself back into his old culture when he vomits up the food his mother made for him. Lee wants to be able to live the best of both worlds, but he realizes here that is not completely possible. One cannot simply bounce back and forth between two cultures and remain unscathed, instead, it would take Lee a great deal of time and effort to try to become a full member of his household again: but he would never be able to go back to the person he was before he went off to school. He has changed at this point in the story, and by not taking that into consideration he only hurts himself- and his family.  

Junot Diaz: "Edison, New Jersey" Analysis

“It passes time, gives us something to look forward to. I close my eyes and put my hand on the map.  So many towns, so many cities to choose from. Some places are sure bets but more than once I’ve gone with the long shot and been right. You can’t imagine how many times I’ve been right.

            Usually the name will come to me fast, the way the numbered balls pop out during the lottery drawings, but this time nothing comes: no magic, no nothing. It could be anywhere. I open my eyes and see that Wayne is still waiting. Edison, I say, pressing my thumb down. Edison, New Jersey” (139-140).

            I thought that the way the author ended the story was very fitting and provided the reader with a sense of optimism. I was curious about why he chose to make the main character choose Edison, New Jersey, and after doing a bit of research I thought that this was actually a very meaningful choice and provided some closure to the story.

            Edison, New Jersey is named after Thomas Edison. This just so happened to be the city where he invented electricity, and the first street to ever be lit up was here. I thought that this was interesting for several reasons. First of all, it seems that Yunior is having a revelation of sorts at this point, that he realizes he can change his life for the better if he wants to do so. Therefore, he has a “lightbulb moment”, as we call it today, which is somewhat ironic. Another way that the light could be a symbol at this point in the story is because up to this point, Yunior has sort of lived a life in the dark. He has no real plans or goals for himself, nor does he seem to be going in any particular direction: it’s more like he just drifts along, as if he is roaming down a dark hallway and dealing with things as he stumbles into them. However, now it seems that he realizes he needs to change. He is no longer in contact with Pruitt, and him and Wayne are off to a fresh, new start, which is exactly what he needs. There is finally a light at the end of the tunnel for Yunior: a new life ahead, in which he only worries about himself and creating the kind of life he wants to live. This idea is confirmed when Yunior says that predicting where Wayne and him will go next gives them “something to look forward to”. He needs something to put his faith on, and this is it: while it seems small and insignificant, he needs this.

            Today, Edison, New Jersey is the ideal place to live a good life. Rated the 28^th most livable small city in the United States, it has good school systems and low crime rates, and picturesque living areas. This would, hypothetically, be an ideal place for a person to start over and work on creating their ideal life. Including Edison, New Jersey in the story definitely had an impact on the way I viewed the ending, and gave me a sense of hope for Yunior and his future happiness.

“Is this our home? Is this our country? I ask Maria. Don’t these men have mothers, lovers, babies, sisters? Don’t they see what they are doing? Later, Maria says, these men are babes farted out from the Devil’s ass. We check to make sure no one has heard her say this
Without Geraldo, this is not my home; the earth beneath it, not my country” (75).

I liked this quote because I think it does a great job of portraying the absolute despair that the woman narrating the story at this point is feeling throughout the entire story. At this point it is clear that she is not comfortable at all living in America. She does not know if she is meant to stay in California. She cannot feel at home because technically she isn’t at home. Her unsettled attitude is reflected upon throughout this entire story, which had a very unsettling tone. Almost every event gave me a feeling of unease, with the little girl and her brother getting lost in the beginning, the man who owns the diner talking about his estranged family and how he misses them, and especially the ending of the story where it becomes tragically apparent that there is not a happy ending in sight for our narrator. That unsettling feeling is especially apparent in this passage. The women despise the soldiers; say nothing but horrible things about them and view them as the scum of the earth, but in the end, they are still completely vulnerable to them and must surrender to their power. They can say whatever they want about them, as long as no one is around to hear them say it. This was so sad to me: this woman’s struggle throughout the story was awful to read about, because there is literally nothing she can do to make her life better. She is stuck in so many aspects of her life; she really doesn’t even have a home anymore, if a home is somewhere where one can go to feel safe. It seems as though this woman can never truly feel safe, and the only person who can give her happiness, her son, even gets taken away from her. Once that happens, she sees no hope, no point in doing anything besides retreating back to where she came from. It is as if without her son, she is a child herself, she relies on him so much. This aspect of the story was especially heartbreaking to me, because once she lost her son it was clear she was not getting him back. In this way, the ending is the only way the story really could have ended, because it provides this woman narrator with the only tiny bit of justice she gets throughout the entire story. Assuming her son is in fact already dead, she will indeed be joining him very soon. The alternative is almost too sad to contemplate: that her son is out there alive somewhere, waiting for her to find him. As terrible as this would be, it would not be surprising given the previous events of the story and how this woman can never have what she wants- and thinks she deserves.

“That day, the white Supervisor came to inspect the school and wrote a nasty report on the state of the premises but more seriously about the “tribal-war situation developing between the school and the village, arising in part from the misguided zeal of the new headmaster” (2).

This quote is full of irony, which is part of the reason why I enjoyed it so much as the end of the story. All that Obi is concerned about throughout this story is turning the school into a “place of beauty”, but he seems to have his ideas backwards. He does not realize that the school is already beautiful; that what makes it so is the rich history that it encompasses and spirituality on its own property. He is concerned that the Government Education Officer will scorn the footpath if he sees it or sees anyone near it, doing what they believe it is made for. However, even the officer- a white man- understands the value of the footpath. Obi does not want his culture and village people to be looked down upon by the white man for their traditions, but in the end it is what Obi himself is doing that ends up being viewed as a “tribal-war situation”. On top of his displeasure with Obi and how he is trying to overtake such a precious piece of property, the white Supervisor also wrote a “nasty” report on the condition of the premises, which was ironic in itself because Obi had also been so concerned about the physical upkeep of the property and it had only taken one night for all his work to go to waste. Obi seems to have adapted the mindset that is becoming more and more prevalent in our own society today: that what’s old is useless and ugly, and what’s new and flashy will always triumph. This story did a good job of reflecting upon this mindset and the destruction it can cause, because this newfound, unwritten rule of new things being better is hardly true at all. Adapting such a mindset can only cause destruction of valuable things, as exhibited quite clearly in this story.

Ha Jin: "Saboteur" Analysis

"Fenjin was baffled by his teacher, who looked ferocious and muttered to himself mysteriously, and whose jaundiced face was covered with dark puckers. For the first time Fenjin thought of Mr. Chiu as an ugly man" (11).

            One of the main ideas of “Saboteur” is that no one person is as important as they think they are, nor can they have as big of an impact as they would like to think they can. We would all like to believe that we can save the world with our own two hands; that we are enough and all that is needed to make a difference. When Mr. Chiu is first arrested, he has big plans to get himself out of the jail and show the world what happened to him to make a difference and expose the officers of their wrongdoings. He knows that what happened to him was wrong and that he should do his best to make others aware of what happened to him so they can prevent it from happening to themselves and begin making changes in their authority figures. By the time that he is freed from the prison, his mindset is completely different. He is vengeful, and all he can think about is getting back at those who did him wrong. However, he does way more than get back at them, he takes out his revenge on everyone around him and people who he does not even know. In this way, Mr. Chiu is just as immoral as the officers who harassed him and his wife and then arrested him on false charges. He no longer seemed to even care about his wife, who he was so concerned about at first but then enjoyed his time away from as he turned more and more inward. He began exerting less energy thinking about others, such as his wife and other people who could end up in the same situation as him, and more energy plotting how to escape his situation. Once he was able to do so, his only focus was revenge. He could have left the prison and went to the newspapers or news stations, spreading what he now knew about the authorities they trusted, but he chose not to. Instead of making a positive difference like he initially intended to once he was let out, he used his little power to create a huge and harmful effect on society. In this way, Mr. Chiu is indeed an ugly person.

Annie Proulx: "Brokeback Mountain" Analysis

“They seized each other by the shoulders, hugged mightily, squeezing the breath out of each other, saying, son of a bitch, son of a bitch, then, and easily as the right key turns the lock tumblers, their mouths came together, and hard, Jack's big teeth bringing blood, his hat falling to the floor, stubble rasping, wet saliva welling, and the door opening and Alma looking out for a few seconds at Ennis’s straining shoulders and shutting the door again and still they clinched, pressing chest and groin and thigh and leg together, treading on each other’s toes until they pulled apart to breathe and Ennis, not big on endearments, said what he said to his horses and daughters, little darlin”.

            I think that this quote sums up the relationship between Ennis and Jack very well. The two of them are at first in complete denial that they even have a relationship to speak of, and it is easier for both of them to look at the situation between the two of them as purely physical, something that they never thought they would enjoy but still do nonetheless. However, I could tell that their relationship would not remain just physical for long, and this is demonstrated here in this quote, where they are so excited to see one another again that they kiss even though Alma is right nearby and actually sees them. Her catching the two in their embrace represents all of the people that would disapprove of their relationship, which would basically be all of the society that they are a part of, and they are aware of this and do their best to keep the relationship private. Neither of the two know how to act with the other, and this is demonstrated through their physical interactions, involving bumping toes and biting lips and all kinds of awkwardness that they do not mind at all, because that’s how their whole relationship is anyway. There is nothing easy about the two of them being together, and they realize this. The descriptions used in this passage are very reflective of their relationship, as well. The two of them have the kind of love that can only be demonstrated through intense passion. If they aren’t pleasuring each other physically in the best sex either of them have ever had, then they are fighting and making each other more angry than they had ever been. There seems to be no middle ground with the two of them, and even though they step on each other’s toes often, like it is said in this quote, they simply cannot be apart from one another. As much as they argue they pull each other in at the same time, like a crying child who screams at their mother to put them down put clings to them even tighter while saying so. Jack and Ennis have a relationship that hurts, and that is never easy for them. However, it is demonstrated in this quote that it is still completely worth it to both of them and that they could not live without seeing each other.