The Third Dumpster Analysis

Moving to another continent can be difficult, but not making an effort to fit in, can make it much more complicated. Gish Jen´s shorts story “The Third Dumpster” is dealing with immigration, na-tionality and how life can be if you choose to live as a Chinese family in America. Gish are like the family in the short story, a second generation Chinese-American. This means that he probably has been experiencing some of them same issues as the family in the story. In this assignment, I will focus on the style of writing and the use of contrasts.

If we take a look at the language and style in the short story we will see that the sentence structure has a normal/short length with simple language e.g. They were therefore fixing it up for their parents (page 1, line 6). This shows a colloquial language use in daily speech. The language is simple, and the sentences are short, this means that a younger audience can understand it, however the story also uses

It begins in medias res Goodwin Lee and his broth-er, Morehouse, had bought it at auction, for nothing (page 1 line 1). The use of in medias res cap-tures the readers interest so they want to read on. The quoted present also the story’s situations they had bought it at auction, for nothing and both of the two import characters are present Goodwin Lee and his brother, Morehouse. The usage of in medias res indicates that the short story is a novel but also the open ending supports that, And Morehouse would answer, that´s what they are, all right, the fuckers. Nodding and nodding, even as he went on building. (page 5, line 180-181). The effect of the ending makes the reader kind of sad. Goodwin wish he was more like his brother, but he is not, and this frustrates him. Therefore, the novel creates a sad and a happy ending, because the narrator makes the reader end the novel his/her self. So maybe Goodwin does become more like his brother or maybe he sticks to what he