“The dead move on…But the living, we just stay here”
The dead progress with their lives by transmuting into ghosts. Comparatively, the living have the propensity to mourn the dead for protracted periods which thwart them from recommencing their lives. David’s remarks confirm that he has not overcome the anguish of losing his family to death.
“Not all ghosts are bent on vengeance and mayhem.My ghosts were the quiet and shy ones like my mother, as well as the mournful revenants in my mother’s stories.It was my mother, the expert on ghosts, who told me my brother was not going to return.He had disappeared when I turned my back on him, reaching for a box of tissues.There was only a depression in the sofa where he had sat, cold to the touch.”
Nguyen proclaims his ideology of ghosts to debunk the prevalent notion that ghosts are utterly malevolent. His familiarity with his departed brother’s calm ghost alongside his mother’s ghost narrative, affirm that some ghosts are good-natured; hence, would not distress the living. Amiable ghosts conserve the memoirs which the living retain pertaining the deceased.
“I knew the basics of our history as well as I knew the story ofAdam and Eve: the Communists had marched from North Vietnam in 1975 to invade South Vietnam, driving us out, all the way across the Pacific to Cafornia. I had no memories ofthe war, but Mrs. Hoa said others had not forgotten.”
Nguyen exploits the historical allusion of the Vietnamese war which bids particulars about the reason of his presence and his family’s in California. Moreover, alluding to communism bids evidence concerning the underpinning of the war. Alluding to ‘ Adam and Eve’ , which is a religious allusion, accentuates Nguyen’s appreciation of his history; he is not oblivious of the reality of the war.
