Coming Home Again - Chang Rae Lee

Coming Home Again

by Chang Rae Lee
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"Yes, I made a big mistake. You should be with us for that time. I should never let you go there.”

“So why did you?” I said.

“Because I didn’t know I was going to die.” 

Coming Home Again is a story that describes the tense, yet loving relationship between a mother and her son. The mother's health is ailing while the son is away at boarding school, and the entire story ultimately centralizes around the mother trying to bond with her son in her dying years.

One part of the story that I found particularly sad was how the mother continuously tried eating food in front of her family, while everyone knew that she could not stomach it. It showed that she was legitimately trying to make an effort, just to appease her family, when she knew that it would inevitably fail and that she would not even be able to swallow the food.

The primary channel of bonding between son and mother is their shared interest in cooking. Throughout his childhood, the son would stand right next to his mother and watch her every move while she cooked. It interested him and he would often ask her questions about her methodology. However, after going to boarding school and returning, his education changed him and he forgot many of the little things that his mother taught him, such as which spices to use and when.

Seeing her in her decrepit state, it pains him to forget such little tidbits of knowledge. It seemed to me that the overarching theme of this story is never to take what you have for granted, as the son does. It is important to being present and engaged with your loved ones for as much time as you possibly can, because you never know when they'll disappear from your life forever. As is mentioned in the quote I begin this blog post with, the mother regrets not spending more time with her son. Despite the fact that going to Exeter in New Hampshire educated her son more, it took precious time that she could have spent with him away from her.

Edison, New Jersey - Junot Diaz

Edison, New Jersey

by Junot Diaz
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"Don't get angry.

I'm tired, that's all.

Tired's the best way to be, he says. It really is."

Edison, New Jersey is a story about an under-privileged man and his friend Wayne who are employees of a moving company. The two of them live their lives with very little excitement and often find their days full of disappointment. For example, the main character's girlfriend leaves him and finds a new man.
He basically does whatever he can to stay positive and make the best out of his days, while exacting revenge on those who wrong him (usually the people whose house he is delivering to). He makes up games with his friend and steals from the people who give him a hard time, always trying to get a little extra wherever he can. I don't blame him for stealing from them, considering his predicament. He leads a rather depressing life with very little going for him.
I interpret this story to mean that when life gets down on you, you need to just keep pushing on and doing whatever you can to maintain a positive attitude. When life gets down on you there is little else you can do other than staying positive and getting enjoyment out of little things, such as silly games with your friends, to keep you going. The two characters in this story exemplify getting by on very little.
Another thing that the main character did to help maintain his happiness and his sanity with the repetition of his everyday life was giving the hired-help of one of the homes he was delivering for a ride to New York. It took him a week and was a serious investment of his time, but he did it because it was a good deed and it helped someone out who he could really see needed the help. He gave her a ride because he wanted someone else to be happy and by making another person happy, it made him happy in turn. That's what I considered this story to be about -- the little things that keep you going and helping others.

The Cariboo Cafe - Helena Viramontes

The Cariboo Cafe

by Helena Viramontes

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"Raising a child is like building a kite.You must bend the twigs enough, but not too much, for you might break them... It is such delicate work, Lord, being a mother."

The Cariboo Cafe is a story that details the delicacy of raising a child. Unfortunately, the mother is forced to do so in an extremely dangerous environment. All throughout the story, the mother is described as incredibly diligent in regards to her work ethic. She does everything she possibly can to provide for her children and her family, washing dishes and picking up additional shifts on the weekends and during odd hours.

This story has strong themes of Nature vs. Nurture. The "polie" -- the antagonists of the story -- are terrible people who take them away to Tijuana and do terrible things to them. The people are forced to work endless hours for their food and relinquish any sentiment of a normal lifestyle. The reason that I began to consider the theme of Nature vs. Nurture resulted from the way the mother described these evildoers as "farts out of the Devil's ass". I wonder: were these people born evil or did societal influence push them to be such evil characters?

In my opinion, The Cariboo Cafe was a story describing the power and intensity of a mother's love for her child. It details the extent of how far the mother will go to protect her child. She throws hot coffee in the polies' faces right before they put the barrel of a gun to her head and kill her at the end of the story while she held her child's hand. The end of the story was very powerful in terms of describing the mother's love for her child.

Seventeen Syllables - Hisaye Yamamoto

Seventeen Syllables

By Hisaye Yamamoto
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"Jesus, Jesus, she called silently, not certain whether she was invoking the help of the son of the Carrascos or of God, until there returned sweetly the memory of Jesus' hand, how it had touched her and where."

Seventeen Syllables describes the unhappy life of a woman who the reader is led to believe has been struggling with depression for several years. Up until the end of the story, the content centralizes around the woman's love and obsession with poetry -- specifically, haikus. The family lives on a tomato farm and the daughter, Rosie, develops an emotional connection with Jesus Carrasco, a son of the family that helps them tend their farm.

As the story progresses, the husband and father of the family is seen becoming more and more hateful of his wife's obsession with haiku. He is slowly alienated from her life; when guests come over, his wife will take the literary-inclined guests to her study to discuss poetry, while he would be left entertaining the rest. The separation between the two of them seems to develop into a chasm of mutual disinterest.

Finally, at the end of the novel, when the father burns the prize that his wife earned in a poetry submission contest, the wife takes Rosie by the wrists and tells her that she was suicidal before meeting Rosie's father and that marrying him was her alternative to suicide. Upon telling her daughter this, she makes her daughter promise to never get married. Rosie promises, but looks off into the distance while doing so, and her mother senses her insincerity.

The last few pages of the story convey the entire message of the story; to me, the story illustrated the negative repercussions that being unhappy to one's spouse can have on the couple's offspring. Basically, the mother was depressed for her entire adult life. She was depressed before she married Rosie's father, and did not (and may not still) truly love him when she married him. Therefore, her depression continued to spiral in a negative trajectory. When she finally found something she was passionate about, her husband was jealous because she did not devout the same amount of time and attention to him as she did to the art of poetry; thus, causing the husband to displace his anger on her art.

When her husband finally snaps and burns her first place prize, the sign that it gives to Rosie is nothing less than an eccentric display of hopelessness in regards to love and happiness. Her father's actions and her mother's words illustrate to Rosie that love is terrible; that it ruins lives.

The story's message is that one's actions affect more than just oneself. Actions and words send a message beyond what one realizes at the time.

Dead Men's Path - Chinua Achebe

Dead Men's Path

by Chinua Achebe
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Dead Men's Path was a folklore story about the repercussions of neglecting the wishes of ancestral spirits. Set in Nigeria, it follows the enterprising new headmaster of a school named Michael Obi in his attempt to eradicate the beliefs of old. He wants to fence off the century-old of a walkway for the dead and the unborn to enter the village. Everything he does, he does in order to impress the inspector coming the following week. Despite the warnings of an old priest who told him "the whole life of this village depends on it", Obi blockades the pathway, claiming the spirits would not mind a slight detour.

Little does Obi know that his actions would be so counterproductive. Much to his dismay, a mother died in childbirth the next day, his hedges were torn up, his flowers were trampled on, and one of his school buildings were destroyed.

In my opinion, the purpose of this story centralized around the importance of respecting one's elders and one's ancestors. Michael Obi, living in the present day and planning for his future, with no regard to anything else, incurs the wrath of his ancestors by disrespecting them and disrespecting his elders who warned him. What I interpreted the story to mean is as follows: do not get too wrapped up in your own ambitions that you ignore the desires of those around you.

Saboteur - Ha Jin

Saboteur

Written by Ha Jin

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Saboteur is a story written with a clear purpose. It details the atrocities that befall the unfortunate Mr. Chiu, a lecturer at a nearby university. The entire story seemed to be an outcry against authority. The last paragraph of the story describes Mr. Chiu's act of vengeance resulting from his predicament; the most interesting part of the novel for me, I was left considering whether his action was justified.

Abuse of power

The fundamental plot of the story follows the policemen seriously abusing their power -- they know that they can do whatever they please, and they do so without remorse.  Mr. Chiu, an educated scholar, who was highly aware that the police were breaking the law and bullying innocent citizens, is highly perturbed by his wrongdoers actions:"Time and again he was overwhelmed by anger, cursing aloud, 'A bunch of thugs!' "

Vengeance

As I mentioned prior, Mr. Chiu did get his revenge on the police. The last paragraph of the story describes how he "dragged his lawyer from restaurant to restaurant near the police station, but at each place he ordered no more than two bowls of food ... ... While eating, he kept saying through his teeth, 'If only I could kill all the bastards!' " The author goes on to describe the epidemic of acute hepatitis that began to plague the vicinity within six months, clearly inferring that Mr. Chiu was the source.

Was Chiu justified in his revenge?

Personally, I was shocked by the ending. Though he is illustrated throughout the novel as a hateful and spiteful individual, he also is described as one who is able to remain calm despite his anger. A very educated man, I expected better morals of Chiu. Indeed, he and his lawyer were severely wronged by the barbaric policemen. Yet, that hardly gives Chiu the right to enact his revenge against the general public. There was nothing else he could do to get back at the police, save murdering them and landing himself in jail, but, in my opinion, that in no way justifies his actions against the community as a whole. As mentioned at the end of the story, "Six died of the disease, including two chuildren."

Thus, it is my opinion that this a story of revenge that instills poor ethics. I highly disagree with the morals that Saboteur infers in its message. Rather than acting on revenge when one is wronged, one should learn to cope with the wrongdoing in a more positive manner: forgiving and moving on.

"Brokeback Mountain" -- Annie Proulx

Brokeback Mountain
by Annie Proulx
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"Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives"

Not your average love story, by any means. Brokeback Mountain is unquestionably a tragedy. Of course, it is tragic in regards to the fact that one of the two protagonists of the story is brutally beaten to death by a tire iron and left in the dirt to drown in his own blood; a gruesome, unwarranted death for a man with half of his life left in front of him. However -- and not to undermine the tragedy of this event at the end of the short story, by any means -- I propose that this story is tragic throughout. The very nature of the story is morose, the content depressing.
The problems in this story are issues that many people today continue to deal with. Homosexuals especially saw issues identical to this preventing man from being with his lover throughout the course of history, but this most recent century perhaps more than ever. Homophobia is a fear that has driven the vast majority to hate homosexuals and commit unforgivably cruel crimes against them.
I digress; I would now bring up one of the most prominent plays ever written as an example for comparison: Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Two star-crossed lovers, destined to be together should circumstance ever permit, but kept apart by fear of the repercussions of their actions. Romeo and Juliet and Brokeback Mountain tell virtually the same story from two very different perspectives. Both stories are told from a narrative that leads the reader to identify with the lovers and hope for their reunion, their happiness together. Both are tragedies. Both leave a sour taste in the reader's mouth after putting the story down and result in a bitterness regarding the nature of society in the time it was written.
Before reading this for class, what I had heard about the story was limited to the very judgmental summaries of my friends. There seriously is a lot more to the story than two homosexual cowboys finding comfort in each others' arms in the cold of winter. Popular speculation of the story does the piece a serious injustice -- it really contains lots of insightful, brilliant subtext about the harsh reality of love being denied by the circumstances the lovers find themselves in.