“He was right here” - “Black-Eyed Women”
Nguyen writes, “When she (his mother) said my brother’s name, I did not think of my brother, he had died long ago. I closed my eyes and said I did not know anyone by that name, but she persisted.’ He’s here to see us.’ She said, stripping off my covers and tugging at me until I rose, eyes half-shut. She was sixty –three, moderately forgetful, and when she led me to the living room and cried out, I was not surprised.” Evidently, Nguyen’s mother is persuaded that she perceived her son. Comparatively, Nguyen is not convinced about his brother’s visit for he is deceased. Psychoanalytically, Nguyen’s mother perceives her son’s ghost due to the unconscious nostalgia. Nguyen’s mother is persuaded that her son was there for it placates her unconscious longing for him returning. Besides, the ghost’s vanishing portrays their nature which cannot be grasped by humans.
“I always a little disappointed” - “War Years”
Nguyen recalls, “I liked school, even summer school. It was like being on vacation from home, and at three o’clock, I was always a little disappointed to walk the four blocks to the grocery store my parents owned, the New Saigon Market, where English was hardly ever spoken and Vietnamese was loud.” Nguyen’s penchant for school sustains that he prefers school to home. Customarily, he would have been enchanted for going to the store; home should have bid him the vacation-like atmosphere. Nguyen’s ironic partiality determines that he did not like the chores which he was allotted at the store. For him, school was more soothing than home.
“Making peace with the Communists might not be such a bad thing.” - “War Years”
First, Nguyen’s mother asserts, “Making peace with the Communists might not be such a bad thing.” Later she declares, “The Communists are evil… “There’s no doubt about it. They don’t believe in God and they don’t believe in money.” If Nguyen’s mother is utterly persuaded about the Communists’ badness, she would not endorse making peace with them. Her sardonic ratification sanctions that she is convinced that it is unmanageable to triumph a contest against the communists. Consequently, she thinks that peace would be the only feasible resolution for long-lasting peacetime.
