But Liems situation also introduces the idea that cultural identity is tied to family: here, without any family, Liem feels culturally isolated. 2023 . However her plan backfires when he not only continues to call her Yen but begins to act violently towards her. The title of this story presents a haunting question for the reader: Who is the "other man"? Not long after Thomas's mother died, his father began dating Mimi, a thin, middle-aged woman with a perm. PhD Dissertation, Department of Political & Social Change, Research School of Pacific & Asian Studies, The Australian National University, 2006. Instant downloads of all 1725 LitChart PDFs . T he face of Tou Thao haunts me. The Refugees comes at a time when Americans are being forced to reckon with what our country is becoming, what values we truly hold dear. The narrator, now grown, is divorced from his wife, and his father wants them to get back together. It's hard not to feel for Nguyen's characters, many of whom have been dealt an unfathomably bad hand. He cannot convey any of this experience through the occasional letters he sends home to his parents, knowing that the Communists will read every letter and that knowledge of his escape might make things more dangerous for his family. Last Updated on January 6, 2021, by eNotes Editorial. Women's Prize for Fiction In his essay, Nguyen establishes American responsibility for the Vietnamese refugee crisis and credibly disputes the discrimination levied against refugees. Word Count: 1776. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Instead, Shammas explores the possibilities inherent in fictionality itself. Detailed quotes explanations with page numbers for every important quote on the site. This intimacy is so overwhelming to Liem that he believes he is in love, demonstrating how in need he was of human connection. The story is narrated in the unnamed first-person by a 38-year-old ghostwriter who had not yet dealt with the trauma of her childhood. Liem shares with Marcus his final moments with his own father, when he had promised not to lose himself in the city. Ed. When she tells her mother about the experience, her mother purchases new clothes for her son and asks her daughter to give them to him the next time that he visits her. She was visited by the ghost of her older brother, who died when they were fleeing Vietnam and when the siblings were children. Louis Vu asks Arthur Arellano, a Mexican American, to store counterfeit goods for him behind his house in Orange County, California. Every story in The Refugees succeeds on its own terms, but the most affecting one, perhaps, is "The Other Man," about an 18-year-old man named Liem who seeks refuge in America in 1975, after the fall of Saigon. Like the ghostwriter of the previous story, Liem is haunted by what he had seen in trying to escape Vietnam. Already a member? Even though he loves his family, Liem feels removed from their world and doesn't recognize his own reflection. However, over the course of the story, Liem realizes what Parrish meant, and his new surrounding helps him to come into terms with his own sexuality. Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War. Copyright 1999 - 2023 GradeSaver LLC. It's a beautiful collection that deftly illustrates the experiences of the kinds of people our country has, until recently, welcomed with open arms. He was killed when pirates raided the boat on which the narrator's family was fleeing to America. This upsets Thomas, who is still reeling from his divorce. Vivien spends a great deal of money whilst she is visiting them and explains her wealth by telling her father that she is a physician. Teacher Editions with classroom activities for all 1725 titles we cover. Overwhelmed by flying and often confused by the distorted announcements in English, Liem met his sponsor, a British expatriate named Parrish Coyne. Perhaps meeting her sister with the same name would be that reason. Nguyn knows the haunted world of Vietnam from stories that he has heard and books he has read, for he was young when his parents brought him to the United States in 1975. In Liems case, it is also apparent that escaping Vietnam was a difficult choice in and of itself, because it meant having to leave his family, as well as the only life he had ever known. Sam invites them in and shows them photographs of her trip to Vietnam the previous summer but doesn't reveal the identity of the father. Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. When the young narrator suggests that they should pay the full $500, his mother says, "Are you going to be the kind of person who always pays the asking price?" Longing to connect on a deeper level, he confesses his love to Marcus. This thesis investigates the representations of the Burmese Chinese characters failed inter-Asian migrations in Midi Zs Homecoming Trilogyincluding Return to Burma (2011), Poor Folk (2012), and Ice Poison (2014)by discussing this trilogy as a cinema of distance. Through this discussion, this thesis suggests that Midi Zs films not only challenge narratives of linear migration, but also push at the epistemological borders of postcolonial studies and Sinophone studies. Even as he makes a new life for himself in California, he finds himself beset by memories of his narrow escape from Vietnam. Ghosts, the narrator knows, don't always seek revenge for wrongs done to them in their lives. Download the entire The Refugees study guide as a printable PDF! From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Even if you've read the news reports or seen the horrifying photographs, it's hard to fathom the terrible extent of the Syrian refugee crisis. How does the author choose to tell his story and how does that inform you about the act of remembering war? Academia.edu uses cookies to personalize content, tailor ads and improve the user experience. So at twelve, Liem had left school to shine the boots of American soldiers, and in the summer of 1974, he had left Long Xuyen, his village altogether to go to Saigon to make a better income. Women's Prize for Fiction Shortlist, The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen: The Other Man. She's surprised but doesn't turn him down. The story is told in a past tense, third-person-limited narrative by the wife, Sa. NYRB Classics Mollie Panter-Downes After he has departed, Marcus comments to Liem that it is a bore to live with someone who is always trying to save the world. On the way home, Marcus and Liem enjoy a meal of dim sum, and Liem asks Marcus about his own family. Thus, Liem keeps his hardships from his family. The way the content is organized, LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in. His connection to Vietnam is thus the world of words. Intervening in the racial imaginary: mixed race and resistance in contemporary Australian Literature, Politics of Return: Homecoming Stories of the Vietnamese Diaspora, Un-American- Refugees and the Vietnam War.pdf, More Than Just RefugeesA Historical Overview of Vietnamese Professional Immigration to the United States {Journal of Vietnamese Studies , Vol.10, Issue 3 , 2015, pps. Phuong learns that Vivien's mother was one of the people who escaped Vietnam by boat, and that her father was opposed to the escape. She drives all around their neighborhood, calling his name, only to return home and find him in their own library, where she keeps the books he has given her over the years. The story involves two mismatched detectives that attempt to seize an opportunity in the department. However, Parrish is incredibly generous, and Liem feels shame for having such thoughts. While students in the West took to the streets for social change, those in the Republic of Vietnam were similarly active and organized. The next evening when Liem returns home from work, Marcus says that a letter arrived for Liem that day. "You Prefer Your Enemies Simple and Well Defined": Reading Anton Shammas Arabesques as a Novel that Strategically Resists Interpellation. In the first short story, the narratora ghostwriter specializing in so-called memoirs for survivors of tragedies such as airplane crashes and kidnappingssees the ghost of her long-dead brother. The Other Man. Note: When citing an online source, it is important to include all necessary dates. His first wife left him when he was banished from Saigon thanks to the New Economic Zones program, which displaced millions of Vietnamese people between 1975 and 1980. None of his family members had ventured outside Long Xuyen before unless they were drafted by the army, so Liem is fully aware that his responsibility in Saigon is to be his familys lifeline. Like the ghostwriter, Liem is another example of an individual whose life is irrevocably altered by the Vietnam War. It is Nguyen's first published short story collection and his first book after winning the Pulitzer Prize for The Sympathizer. You can help us out by revising, improving and updating In the spring of 1975, six months prior, rockets and mortars began exploding over Saigon, and. Usually the identity of organ donors is kept secret, but the hospital's computer system was hacked and Arthur receives mail that informs him of his donor's identity. Is it Parrish, whose wealth affords him the ability to attract young men for romantic involvement? Is it. Just as she asks why she lived and her brother died, Liem could just as easily have been shot trying to get on the boat instead of someone else. Liems sense of physicality following his sexual encounter with Marcus is obscured as he peers through his reflection and into the street outside. The second is the date of Vintage Arthur orders him to take his fake goods back but Louis retaliates by threatening to tell the authorities that most of the men Arthur employs in his landscaping company are working illegally. Like the narrator of the previous chapter, Liem realizes that he is in some ways a ghost of his former self. Someone Else Besides You is narrated by a thirty-three-year-old man whose father, a high school guidance counselor and Vietnamese veteran, lives with him. Only when Mrs. Hoa threatens to turn the community against the boys mother and ruin her business does the mother give Mrs. Hoa some money. Short Story Collection The second is the date of They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!, This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. Caught in a monsoon, Carver apparently must learn a lesson about strength and weakness. Even though the focus of The Other Man lies on Liem and how he makes a new life for himself, we also get a glimpse of whats happening back in Vietnam through a letter Liems father sends him. In fact, it is worth watching the full recording of his talk. Phuong Ly, her parents and two brothers live together in the city. This paper proposes that Sayed Kashuas Dancing Arabs can be read as an attempt to dramatize the many parallels between Israels ethnocracy and the colonial situation. Cat Stories This leaves him helpless. date the date you are citing the material. When she corrects him, Mr. Khanh becomes confused and refuses to explain who Yen is and what she meant to him. Parrish told Liem that Liem was prettier (read more from the The Other Man Summary). In the novel, the Muslim characters who perform the requirements of a proper Muslim image are accepted into the neo-colonial centre, while those who do not fit into the proper Muslim image are demonised and criminalised. Rather, Cao and l suggest that systemic and institutionalized racial, cultural, and colonial violence perpetuates trauma and as a result, the protagonists experience perpetual injury such that they cannot fully heal. My students love how organized the handouts are and enjoy tracking the themes as a class., Requesting a new guide requires a free LitCharts account. That same weekend, Liem receives a letter from his father, who is afraid of the communist regime in Vietnam and cannot speak freely in his letter for fear of being targeted by soldiers. The interactions in Kashuas novel gesture toward a forceful discouragement of total integration on the part of Israels Arab citizens. Victor is the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed his wife and children. Although she accedes to her mother's request, her brother refuses to take the clothes. What is the shocking news brought by Professor Mosin inThe Refugees? Marcus tells him about his father, an executive who sent Marcus to study overseas so that he could return home and help run the business. Refugee Boy (2001) by Benjamin Zephaniah literalises the refugee experience in contemporary society, reveals the psychology of loss, unbelonging and displacement and helps universalise the traumatic realities of the refugee phenomenon upon innocent people in a 'remote' part of the world through its 14-year-old Eritrean-Ethiopian protagonist. Liem, meanwhile, finds a terrible job as a janitor at a liquor store in order to send money back to his family in Vietnam. Penguin The professor has begun making mistakes typical of those who experience the onset of dementiasuch as putting salt in his coffee and sugar in his soup. He watches a moment of tenderness the two share, one tilting his head back in laughter. However, a few days later Sam visits them regarding the damage. This Study Guide consists of approximately 79pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - This recurrent theme of inescapable ghosts of the past is emphasized both metaphorically and literally in the opening story, Black-Eyed Women. In it, a refugees brother sacrificed his life trying to save her from pirates while fleeing Vietnam to come to a countrywhere she says they had no belongings except our stories. Twenty-five years later, the central character lives with her mother, with whom she shares a passion for words. While the daughter is a ghostwriter, the mother tells horror stories, mainly about life in Vietnam during the war. The United States has accepted more than 10,000 Syrians fleeing the country's civil war, but that's a drop in the bucket millions of Syrians have been forced out of their home country, hoping other nations will take them in. 1 May 2023 . She has decided that Mrs Hoa is an extortionist and refuses to contribute to the fund when Mrs Hoa comes to the store again. eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. eNotes.com He also invokes his family's experience fleeing the Vietnam War, emotively persuading readers to sympathize with those forcibly displaced from their homelands. Carver didn't want to go on this trip, but his wife and daughter, Claire, cajoled him into it, and he is attempting not to look miserable. Talking to him and writing his story inspires the woman to write her own ghost book. She was the oldest of three siblings, who are the second set . Required fields are marked *. Viet Thanh Nguyen wrote the stories inTheRefugeesover a period of two decades. The Australian National University, RSPAS. The gender gap in pay has remained relatively stable in the United States over the past 20 years or so. The story that is most often re-told is that of the ghostwriter's older brother, who died a number of years ago. The citation above will include either 2 or 3 dates. He raises his hand to say hello, a gesture the other man replicates. Liem falls in love with Marcus and tells him so but Marcus dislikes semantics. Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: A Literary Analysis 1292 Words | 6 Pages Word Count: 1540. Harper He is afraid that his children will turn out like his father, Mr. P, inheriting the DNA of a man who cheated on his wife and regularly made his children run until they vomited, ostensibly to toughen them up. Naming my . north dallas forty joe bob; confrontation and challenging the client are; kinder morgan operations specialist job description. This collection of eight stories, published in periodicals before Nguyns novel The Sympathizer won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, focuses on Vietnamese refugees navigating the differences between their homeland and their new home in the United States. Love Stories He has a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, holds an endowed chair of English at the University of Southern California, and has authored academic works of scholarship. Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes. The center of the story is a hero of socialist realism characterized with a set of certain traits which let him serve a role model to educate a builder of a new socialist society.The theme relevance is determined with the insufficient study of the Vietnamese type of socialist realism, as well as its fading in the Post-Renovation period.The Nguyen asserts that we must change the publishing industry so we can tell, hear, and listen to other stories. The article will also attempt to contribute to and develop Hamid Dabashis concept of the house Muslim in order to articulate the cultural and ideological interpellation of the Muslim colonial subject into the dominant logic of the metropolitan culture. The last date is today's This mistake must not be repeated. Ironically, the professor keeps another notebook detailing what he thinks is the mental deterioration of his wife. While he was gone, an ex-lover sent home candid photos of Marcus tucked inside a love letter Marcus had written. He arrives unexpectedly one night, soaking wet from his swim to America. Sometimes ghosts are quiet, like her brother, and accept a change of clothes when their own get wet. The money she has been flashing was the last of her severance pay. The professor and his wife escaped from Vietnam on an old fishing trawler three years after the end of the war. Liems noticing of Marcuss physique and teeth lays the groundwork for the later admiration that Liem will feel toward Marcus, and the intimacy that Liem wishes to have with him. Marcus assures Liem that he couldnt have predicted the future and advises him to help his family by helping himself. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make yourown. He is taken to the hospital where he realizes that Claire has sat at his bedside continually as he is recovering. How would you describe Liem from The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen? The choice of words and names in the story brings out the idea of attraction and persuasions as they create attention of the readers. As one of Nguyen's character reflects, "Stories are just things we fabricate, nothing more. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics. Summary. He has begun to call her Yen, which puzzles her. Victor believes ghosts have helped him overcome the losses in his life. But the American daughter has adopted the name of Vivien, after Vivien Leigh, the actress who played Scarlett in Gone with the Wind. 5/2012, pp. He's taken in by a gay couple, immigrants themselves, one from England and one from Hong Kong. As the eldest son in a family of hawkers and farmers, the duty of helping out the family financially had fallen on Liem at a very young age. Vivien is alarmed that he seems to sympathize with the communists. It's a beautiful story about love, fear and loss, rendered perfectly by Nguyen. 293-326, "Transpacific Precarities: Responding to Souvankham Thammavongsa's Found and Rita Wong's forage in East Asia", Introduction, Transpacific Studies: Framing an Emerging Field. This paper will articulate how the proper refugee identity is constructed through arguments of Foucault and Deleuze. Haunted by the death of her brother, the narrator writes ghost stories that defy the conventions of the genre (much like Nguyen's story does). When they lie together afterward, Liem tells Marcus that he loves him. The central character, the eldest child of the second family, shares the name Phuong with the eldest of the first family, who now live in America. He believes that love is expressed by actions, not by words. the other man nguyen analysis. Whereas radical groups agitated for political reforms and an end to war, more moderate student associations were mobilized for war-relief activities. 5stars. Parrish is middle-aged and British, and upon meeting Liem, pronounces his name incorrectly. Thus, Liems parentss house is now full with uncles, cousins, wives, and children. His father tells Liem that his uncles crimes against the Communist Party have been forgiven, and his uncles have donated their houses to the revolution in thanks. In The Other Man, a refugee named Liem goes to San Francisco to live with his sponsor, Parrish, and Parrishs lover, Marcus. The ghost theme is echoed in the story War Years, in which a passionate anti-Communist whose husband and two sons died in the war and who now lives in California tries to get money from her fellow refugees to fund a hopeless overthrow of the government in South Vietnam. I go hunting for the ghosts, something I can do without ever leaving home," she muses. Told in third-person, past tense, "The Other Man" is a short story about an 18-year-old refugee from Vietnam named Liem who arrived in San Fransisco in the fall of 1975 to be sponsored by a middle-aged British man, Parrish Coyne. Parrish tells Liem that he and Marcus are a couple in the romantic sense. Liem doesnt quite understand and at first believes that this must be another strange American idiomatic expression. Carver storms off, is caught in a monsoon, and falls gravely ill with fever. Liem lives with Parrish in a nice two-story house in San Francisco. Her son wants her to retire so that she can spend more time trying to stimulate her husband's memories, and she seriously considers doing so especially when her husband's condition worsens, he cannot remember how to do the most basic of things, and he continues to address her as Yen. Against such interpretations, we suggest that Arabesques is better understood as a text that resists the process of subject formation as linked to Althussers notion of ideology. This article will also attempt to theorise the process of postcolonial interpellation and explore the relevance of this conceptualisation in terms of articulating the refugee experience through a close reading of the novel. Jennifer Sawtelle. She was a receptionist, and she just got fired. The story focuses on an unnamed ghostwriter (a person who is hired to write literary works that are officially credited to another person), who is writing the memoir of a man named Victor Devoto. This is a book about humiliation, about repression and expression, about the plasticity of identity. Publisher: Grove Press (New York). The night before Vivien is due to leave Vietnam she gives the family gifts that she has purchased for them. And because of his wonderful writing, it's impossible not to do so. But Vivien isn't a pediatrician; she's a receptionist, and she was recently fired after an ill-fated affair with her boss. Last Updated on January 11, 2022, by eNotes Editorial. Parrish and Marcuss revelation becomes yet another culture shock to Liem; however, unlike the past sexual experiences that he goes on to describe, Parrish and Marcus represent an intimacy that allows them to feel less isolated. Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts. Parrish comments that Marcus isnt as mature as Liem, even though Marcus is the older man. Fiction In Translation Saigon, twenty-first century. She is not really a doctor at all. Complete your free account to access notes and highlights. LitCharts Teacher Editions. He stands on the other side of a glass, visible but separate, unable to engage in the intimacy of life. We have to read between the lines to grasp the level of oppression Liems family is facing, but this letter also hints us how alienated Liem has become from his father who advises Liem to lead a healthy, correct life in the sinful land of America! Megan Mayhew Bergman calls the collection as impeccably written as it is timed, reminding us of the current international human-rights drama. Again, Liems hesitation springs mostly from culture shock. Marcuss answer to Liems question reveals that he is focused on their physical intimacy. It is the story of the impact that fighting the war had on the bodies, minds and hearts of mainly. Word Count: 1349. In "The Transplant," Arthur attempts to contact the family of the man whose liver he received in a transplant and is instead duped by a con man. 564-581. The reference to a sinful life is particularly important, because a relationship that is sinful to his family is no longer sinful to Liem. Contrary to Liems prior sexual relations, with Marcus, Liem realizes that sex doesnt have to be shameful. Viet Thanh Nguyens, Oates, Joyce Carol. However, the disguise was created in extreme haste and was not particularly convincing. It is their fathers favorite film, and Phuong thinks it is not farfetched that the ruined Confederacy of the American South is like South Vietnam and her fathers resentment of the countrys loss of identity. Does the title refer to the men who stand outside the window at the end of the story and with whom Liem experiences a fleeting connection? Marcus and Parrish share a home in the Mission District of the city. Fiction, in our reading, is an alternative practice that opens up new possibilities for identity formations and for political criticism which are tied neither to ideology nor to the Althusserian interpellated subject. How? In "Black-Eyed Women," a ghostwriter sees her deceased brother's ghost, forcing her to confront her survivor's guilt. The Refugees study guide contains a biography of Viet Thanh Nguyen, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. "As they haunt our country, so do we haunt theirs. To learn more, view ourPrivacy Policy. You'll be able to access your notes and highlights, make requests, and get updates on new titles. A Postcolonial Approach to Contemporary Refugee Literature: Benjamin Zephaniahs Refugee Boy, Untranslatable Worlds: Trauma, Melancholia, and Hollywood's Vietnam in Lan Cao's Monkey Bridge and le thi diem thuy's the gangster we are all looking for, KAMILA SHAMSIES HOME FIRE: NEO-RACISM AND THE HOUSE MUSLIM, Bhattacharya Chapter 5: Imagined Geographies and Colonial Marginals in Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow. In the movie, The Other Guys, the department is run by Captain Gene Mauch. When she has to help him to the bathroom, he begins to cry. Learn how your comment data is processed. London Stories In his short story of "the other man", he depicts the cultural and political roots of societies, their changes and the effects they come up with. will review the submission and either publish your submission or providefeedback. This article argues that the creative work of the second-generation draws on a performative refugee repertoire of embodied knowledge and expression, one expressive of the diverse aesthetic forms of memory and scripted texts available to marginalized populations. I wanted to spend my life with Jane. The narrator-protagonist is a thirteen-year-old whose parents own a Vietnamese market in San Jose. Arthur is furious and confronts Louis who admits that he took advantage of having the same last name as Arthur's liver donor. The father has never been to Vietnam, apart from flying it as an American pilot in the war. The Other Man is a 2008 British-American psychological thriller film directed by Richard Eyre.
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