Passage – page 34
At
this point the narrator has just come home to her family and announced that she
will take her father’s place in battle – this is right before her parents carve
the letters into her, they are planning it out.
I
chose this passage because it demonstrates how the narrator is treated as an
object with the sole purpose of helping her people win the war, rather than
being the gallant hero, and I’d like to investigate further how she responds to
such treatment – I think it is her response in part that made her seem so weak
to me.
Passage:
“She
meant[1]
that even if[2]
I got killed[3],
the people[4]
could[5]
use my dead body for a weapon,[6]
but we[7]
do not like to talk out loud[8]
about dying.”
1: Word
Definition/Wording: The OED defines “meant” as “Intended, purposed; imbued with
meaning,” which seems to indicate that the narrator believes she knows exactly
what her mom meant by her previous statement “‘Wherever you go, whatever
happens to you, people will know our sacrifice.”’ The connection really isn’t
that obvious, yet to the narrator it is, demonstrating, in my opinion, that she
has some prior knowledge of her destiny, of her purpose. It is likely her
mentors or a family member told her what would happen if she died in battle –
it seems she has been prepping her whole life for this. It’s just a little
unnerving that she knows exactly what her mother is talking about it and can be
so blunt about it.
2:
Wording/Connection: “Even if” implies that this is a last resort, but it also
has this feeling of them being covered – no matter what happens she will serve
her purpose, even if she dies.
Basically, they have options. It sounds optimistic, but that’s unsettling,
considering that she is talking so apathetically about her own death. No one
seems very concerned about the narrator’s death – like when the old woman says
“If you go now, you will be killed, and you’ll have wasted seven and a half
years of our time” (Hong Kingston, 32). Her death would be an inconvenience not
because people would mourn her but because it might get in the way of other
things. Now from this passage it seems the narrator doesn’t care about her
death, yet back earlier she said “We will be so happy when I come back to the
valley, healthy, and strong and not a ghost” (Hong Kingston, 31). So it is
possible she is in fact concerned about her imminent death which is why she has
thought about it so much, and yet she never does anything about it. She never
tells anyone, never fights back.
3: Wording: The wording here really stood out to me. She doesn’t say “If I am killed” or “I if die,” she says “If I got killed.” There’s a sense of responsibility here – she is getting herself killed; it’s her fault. Which of course seems totally impractical. But maybe that is what she has been brainwashed to think? After all, she is being given all the tools for success so if she does die that’s really on her.
4:
Wording/Connection: “The people” is very vague. What people? Her family? Her
army? The opposing army? It’s surprising that she wouldn’t specify – it seems
that therefore her body will be there as a resource for whoever needs it, or
whoever gets to it first. Which seems pretty degrading. Maybe “the people” is
just anyone from her village… it seems to be a recurring theme that she must
not only avenge her family but also the entire village, like at the end of the
story with “the villagers would make a legend about my perfect filiality” (Hong
Kingston, 45). The people in the narrator’s life are nameless and often grouped
together with broad statements. Maybe this is demonstrate how much pressure is
put on her, how cumbersome it is? She can’t even name all the people she must
avenge. She is their hero in a sense, yet she is also an object to be used
however pleases them.
5: Word
Definition/Wording/Connection: “Can” is defined by the OED as “To be able; to
have the power, ability, or capacity.” The word “power” here is pointed. The
people have the freedom to choose whether or not to use her body as a weapon
(what will they do with it if they don’t?!) – it’s merely an option. This is in
stark contrast with when the narrator says “I will stay with you, doing
farmwork and housework, and giving you more sons” (Hong Kingston, 45). There
the “will” depicts certainty, unlike the uncertainty of “can.” So the narrator
must do what is expected of her, what is laid out for her to do – she has no
choice. Meanwhile, everyone else can do whatever they choose, especially when
it involves her.
6:
Syntax/Connection: Interesting how the sentence is broken up here by commas. It
packs a lot into one sentence that could essentially be broken up into two,
maybe even three, separate sentences. This sentence structure pops up a lot,
for example, returning to “I will stay with you, doing farmwork and housework,
and giving you more sons” (Hong Kingston, 45), but it can be for very different
reasons/have very different effects. The moment on page 45 has a listing feel –
her tasks are building up and up and up. But here it has more of the vibe of
hastiness. You can’t get through the whole sentence without taking a breath. So
why does she rush to give us this information? It almost feels like she is
telling us a secret here, because she is not supposed to talk about dying.
7: Wording:
Who is “we” here? Her and her parents? Interesting that all of them don’t like
to talk about dying, that they’re all so in sync. Maybe it isn’t really all of
them but just her. Whatever the case, this “we” speaks of experience. If they
don’t like to talk about it, they must have been in the position of doing so
before. And yet we see her in no real interactions with her parents – the story
starts with her finding the old man and woman. So why have they talked about
dying before, and in what context? Is it possible that her parents let her know
what was coming when she was a child?
8:
Wording: Just thought the wording here was noteworthy: they do not like to
“talk out loud” about dying. My
question is: how do you not talk out loud? She could’ve just said “we do not
like to talk about dying” and they would make as much sense, if not more. So do
they talk in her minds about it? Has she talked to herself imagining she’s
talking to them? This lack of being able to talk out loud seems stifling,
suffocating. As though she never is able to express her true opinions… or is it
possible she just chooses not to?
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