"I say that desire can lead to unhappiness, and so can a strong belief.’’
The quote from above is used at the end of the story ‘’Open Arms’’. The narrator who once fought in the army and had a life and a wife in Vietnam is now living in the USA, having a nice job and a nice apartment. He sometimes thinks about his past and how it was influenced by another man named Thập, a person ruled by his desires and beliefs. Above everything, Thập wanted to be with his wife and his strongest belief was that Vietnam ought to be a Communist country, a pure one in his opinion. His desire for his wife made him unable to experience happiness after she died and his strong believed stopped him from adapting to the new Vietnamese society. All these culminated with his death at the end of the story. The narrator tried to avoid having the same ending and so he made sure his life was void of any desire and strong beliefs. This enabled him to live a long and happy life, without thinking about his past. This also shows that for a person to be happy, they must be balanced and have a clear view on life, without falling into one extreme or another.
"But I must have decided that it was all part of growing up, of becoming a woman like my mother, for it was she who killed them, after all.’’
The narrator in ‘’Mr. Green’’ talks about her childhood and how she used to love birds. Her grandfather took her often to the market and there they would by various birds, some of which were kept as pets. One day, the grandfather and the narrator went to the market and they bought a few birds the narrator thought will become pets. When they get home, the narrator is surprised to see her mother kill the birds and make food out of them. The narrator is thought how to kill the birds as well even though she becomes attached to them. While she did not want to do that, she writes that she believed it was her duty as a part of becoming a woman, thus something she could not avoid. This transmits the idea that adulthood means doing things a person does not always agrees with and making sacrifices. Adulthood and womanhood means putting rules and the wellbeing of others before your own good, something the narrator had to learn at a young age.
"Though this may not be very often, they taste very good to her.’’
The story ‘’Fairy Tale’’ ends with the quote from above, the narrator making reference in this instance to the apples she used to eat. The apples are used as a symbol for the sexual relationships the narrator used to have with her clients whom she compared with the apples she frequently ate. Because of this, the apples lost their taste for her. After the narrator got married, she gave up her former life and thus she started eating apples or having sexual relationships less often than she did before. This prompted her to find joy in sexual relationships once more and thus the apples began tasting sweeter once more.
