Born in Vietnam on a rice farm, dad was sent to jail, immigrated to the United States with seven family members, became a successful poet. Ocean Vuong's family and life experiences has propelled him to accomplish and continue to amaze people today. Vuong writes about his experiences, whether it be positive or negative. Certain negative experiences that he can not seem to shake, also trouble with keeping a healthy relationship, and finally trusting that he will find his own path.
Ocean Vuong’s relationship with his father does not come across as a strong one. Vuong’s father was sent to jail when Vuong was just a child for domestic abuse. “... Don't worry. Your father is only your father until one of you forgets…” Vuong’s mother was always a big role model in his life. They moved from Vietnam to the United States, completely illiterate, poor, and working at a nail salon. Ocean Vuong and his seven family members lived in an
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“... And this is how we loved: a fifth of vodka and an afternoon in the attic…” This just represents how Ocean Vuong’s relationships are toxic. When you think of alcohol it usually is to drink to forget, forget about your problems, stressors, and life in general. In the poem they drink together to forget their problems in the relationship, which is obviously not healthy. This is a direct result of how memories can be a good and bad thing. Vuong’s father hit his mother then got sent to jail, which resulted in a later divorce. The one relationship that everyone looks to is that child's parents, Vuong did not have that. Sadly, a lot of children do not have that relationship to look to either, this explains the corrupt “dating” culture society deals with today. “... Your other hand pointing your daddy's revolver to the sky…” Daddy's revolver sounds as if a child has taken control of something with too much power that they can not understand. S/he points it to the sky which shows carelessness and a form of rebellion or need for
“The Sacred Willow” portrays four generations of a Vietnamese family that stretches from the traditional mandarin culture of northern Vietnam, the French occupation, the Vietnamese war, to life in the US. A main portion of this book is centered around the narrator Mai’s father Duong Thieu Chi and his struggle of working in the government while raising a family during the time of French Occupation. Throughout Mai’s accounts, her father’s internal conflict between good and bad as well as modern and traditional are highlighted to symbolize the 20th century Vietnamese sentiments towards their country and their call for independence. The books begins by Mai retelling her great grandfather and grandfathers’ lives which are important because it gives reasoning to explain how the French occupation drastically changed her father, Duong Thieu Chi’s life, career, and decisions.
Through a binary of optimism to disposition, for example, “glory from above,” found in line nineteen, and “it’s all downhill from here,” communicates that through the good, there could be bad. Within the song, Ocean speaks about a possible intimate feeling or relationship with someone he was involved with that explains the happenings and effort given yet the repetitive downfall that seems to follow along with it in the end. One strong example of Ocean’s view of love is a repetition of “you showed me love,” being one line that is repeated twice in the song. This showing of compassion to one person demonstrates his compatible comprehension and how he might possibly be involved with someone that he sees so highly.
The narrator immediately incorporates symbolism insinuating the emphasis on struggle in the first stanza. Symbolizing adversity, she tells the reader “I think by now the river must be thick with salmon. Late August,
It was only then that I could forget how big the sea was, how far down the bottom could be, and how filled up it was with things that couldn 't understand a nice hallo. (42) Here, the motif of water personifies the closeness of their relationship.
Regret is a powerful emotion that has the ability to scar someone for the rest of their life. Moments of regret can come from relationships, self-made decisions and life changing events. The idea of regret also applies to “A Marker on the Side of the Boat” by Bao Ninh and “On the Rainy River” by Tim O’Brien. Although these two literary pieces are very different in many ways, both authors describe the experience of the Vietnam War as a time of regretful decisions that negatively impacted people of both the American side and the Vietnamese side. Both authors tell a story about a character that recalls of flashbacks of the war, where they grieve over the past decisions that have affected them for the rest of their life.
The Boat by Alistair MacLeod is about a boy who grew up in a fishing town and wanted to escape it retelling his story. The unmanned narrator starts the story by telling the readers of his first boat ride. We learn from the story that his father is a fisherman and his mother has always known this life of fishing. So the narrators entire life was spend on a boat; from reading thee we will learn that the boat is a reoccurring theme and it is kind of personified. The we learn that the narrator’s father is an avid reader and is always reading.
Poetry Analysis Once the poem “History Lesson” was written numerous poetry foundations celebrated it for many reasons. “History Lesson” not only makes an impact on literature today it has also impacted people also. This poem inspires people and moves them to the point to where they can find a personal connection to the poem itself and to the writer. Not only does it hold emotional value for those who were victimized and those whose family were victimized by the laws of segregation, but the poem is also celebrated for its complexity. The poem uses many techniques to appeal to the reader.
The poem “A Story” by Li-Young Lee depicts the complex relationship between a boy and his father when the boy asks his father for a story and he can’t come up with one. When you’re a parent your main focus is to make your child happy and to meet all the expectations your child meets. When you come to realize a certain expectation can’t satisfy the person you love your reaction should automatically be to question what would happen if you never end up satisfying them. When the father does this he realizes the outcome isn’t what he’d hope for. He then finally realizes that he still has time to meet that expectation and he isn’t being rushed.
Dave Berry once said, “There 's nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater,you realize that you 've been missing the whole point of the ocean. Staying on the surface all the time is like going to the circus and staring at the outside of the tent..” By the outside, someone may look like they fit in, while the adversities one deals with internally are hidden on the inside. The struggles one goes through needs to really be brought up to attention and the attempt to understand what one goes through day to day must happen. In From Silence to Words Writing as a Struggle, Min-Zhan Lu explains the struggles experienced growing up in China and the influences of
In his memoir, Where the Wind Leads, Vinh Chung demonstrates the theme that times of despair and hardship will eventually pass, but it is the motivation to succeed which will make that time fruitful. While relaying the story of his family’s past, Chung gives an overall theme of success and prosperity which accompanies the distress and conflict brought about by the encompassing Vietnam War. As Chung stated, “[W]hat I do know is that the same pressure that can crush coal into dust can also turn carbon into diamond . . . Tough times produce tough people” (14). Though this theme of success can be grounded in one’s desire to prosper, Chung shows a deeper desire from which this success stems.
She faces racism, discrimination, loneliness, and, over time, a growing sense of love for her new home. Ha’s life is turned “inside out and back again”. Before Ha had to flee Saigon, she was headstrong and selfish, but she was also a girl who loved her mother and couldn't wait to grow up. She wanted to be able to do something before her older brothers did it, and do it better. But most of all, Ha wanted to fit in, to be liked.
“Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice” Nam Le’s “Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice” is categorized in “ethnic story” narrated his Vietnamese life in order to meet an upcoming deadline even though finally he can’t submit his story because his father burns his work. Throughout the story, Nam the narrator talks about “the past” which he experiences when he was young including the recent experience that he has got from his father reunion. Not only does the story tell us about the past which, but it also shows a connection of time between past, present, and future. Likewise, the story shows the relationship between son and father which is the main theme of this story; and shows how the past is important and affect to them differently. Also, the story of the past could lead to the end of the story that can be interpreted like a prediction of the direction of their relationship in the future.
Billions of people live in this world, each one taking part in countless relationships. These relationships form through the various interactions of everyday life. There are the relationships between friends, teachers and their students, and even the relationships between pets and their owners, all of which develop unique and amiable friendships over time. These relationships, however, often end and cannot withstand life’s hard ways, leaving only the strongest and deepest bond to survive the storms—the bond within the family. Simon J. Ortiz and Robert Hayden both depict this family bond differently in their poems.
On the Rainy River is a story about a man, Tim O’Brien, who struggles with a life altering decision. He evaluated his own personal convictions regarding the Vietnam War at an isolated fishing lodge by the Canadian border. Three different forms of isolation are present in this story. These include physical, emotional, and societal isolation – all of which had an effect on how Tim dealt his conflicting emotions. Physical isolation played a prominent role in Tim O’Brien’s final decision to go to war.
In the poem, “A Hymn to Childhood,” Li-Young Lee talks about having fragmented individuality from childhood due to war. He is lost in perception of a traumatic childhood caused by war and a normal naïve childhood. Lee depicts the two diverged childhoods from his memory through the use of antithesis to emphasize the world perceived by a self fragmented individual. Throughout the poem, he consistently presents two opposing ideas to show what it feels like to grow up with emotional trauma.