'Personality Change In Celeste Ng's Our Missing Hearts'

If We Fear Something: What Causes the Personality Change in Bird and how those Changes Improved him in Celeste Ng’s Our Missing Hearts
It is very difficult for human beings to change, especially if it will disrupt their comfortable lives. I have friends who never achieve self discovery and never grow, they don't explore their fears or lose trust when it's right. In Celeste Ng's novel “Our Missing Hearts”, Bird's journey to find his mother is not only a physical journey but also a journey of self-discovery. Throughout the novel, Bird encounters various conflicts that help him change and grow as a person. Two specific personality traits that change in Bird for the better are his ability to trust and his willingness to face his fears. Another

At the beginning of the book, Bird is distrustful because his father fed him lies ever since his mother left causing him to not trust his father, but in the end he betters himself and becomes trusting because when he leaves to New York leaving behind his father to find his mother, he trusts his mother to protect him.The text states, “You haven't –heard from her have you…she's not a part of your life anymore as far as we’re concerned,she doesn't exist” (Ng 54). This quote perfectly encapsulates how Bird's father gaslights him and how he loses Bird's trust as after this quote Bird knows what his fathers saying is wrong. Bird's father clearly shows here how he manipulates his son into believing his mother was doing no good, in part with good intentions but it isn't clear to Bird at the moment. The text states “the teacher said…we all want our children to be safe…we don’t want them exposed to bad ideas—ideas that might hurt them, or encourage them to do bad things” (Ng 32). This quote shows how Bird becomes distrustful due to the school system and the government banning books and blocking sites causing him to want to learn more. In addition, this causes him to ignore all the propaganda being spouted by the people around