In Paradise of the Blind by Dương Thu Hương, the first person narrative point of view is essential in contributing to the intimate feel of the of the novel, thus revealing Hang’s open, vulnerability. The narrative throughout the entirety of the novel is through the perspective of Hang as she recollects various memories about her childhood and family history. The novel begins with Hang on a train as she is traveling to visit her uncle Chihn. Within this narrative, Hang’s memories are framed as she switches back and forth between stories throughout the novel. This revolving of stories mimics a human’s natural train of thought in the way that it is like she is lost in thought and then regains consciousness to the present for a short while. This narrative technique makes the first person point of view more realistic with its sporadic pace, just as the brain has sporadic thoughts. As Hang is at the train station, her train of thought can be seen when …show more content…
While she is on the train, she cannot help herself but to be lost in her thoughts. She thinks to herself, “‘Don’t think so much…’ I mumbled to myself. ‘Forget these complexes. Don’t complicate life. Don't be so ridiculous,’ I continued, punishing myself with these thoughts. My cheeks burned and the hatred I felt for my uncle rose in me. I quickly boarded the train, nestled myself in a corner of the compartment, and closed my eyes” (Duong 16). The internal struggle is revealed in this passage as Hang has to repeat over and over to herself to stop thinking. At the end of the passage, she closes her eyes which is when the frame switches to the side story of her family history. By closing her eyes, she gives into her racing thoughts, but it also symbolizes Hang’s entire life in the way that she fights conforming to the societal pressures but always ends up giving
Blindness is not limited to physical manifestation. In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” the figurative blindness is immediately apparent through the narrator and his shallowness, irrational jealousy, and egotistical personality. His dismissive behavior and ignorance towards the feelings of Robert, his wife’s blind friend, speak negatively of his character and reveals his insecurities. While the narrator’s emotional blindness and Robert’s physical blindness initially inhibits their bond, it eventually leads the narrator to an epiphany and the beginning of a character transformation. The different forms of blindness allow the characters to bond and grow over the course of the story.
The interdependent connection between culture, food and community is pivotal in the demonstration of the importance Vietnamese tradition in Paradise of the Blind. Chapters eight and nine focus on the importance of culture through family particularly evident in the way food acts as an expression of this culture. Food is also used to establish a sense of community, which is an important aspect in the Vietnamese culture.
Your analysis of Paradise of the blind reminds me of the literature of the great Gatsby that commonly reveal actions and brings out logic related to cause and effect, characters, and critical analysis of the story. Reading literature like Paradise of the blind and the great Gatsby is important to focus on the community level, to develop the significance of wealth, social class, as a reflection of the standpoint to understand the life of the characters. In Paradise of the blind, I see suffering of women under chaos beliefs. Unfortunately, the biases against women in different countries around the world still relevant today. In some places like those in the Middle East, males are able to go to school and learn how to read and write, but females
In the narrative, the author writes the story in first person point of view through an unnamed narrator which enables the reader to visualize, experience, and perceive a deeper insight into his mind. The story commences with the narrator speaking directly to the audience appearing closed-off and narrow-minded. His wife has an old friend named Robert, who happens to be blind, coming to spend the night. Right away, the reader can sense how the narrator comes off as self-absorbed. He`s only concerned about how Robert’s visit will affect him and is inconsiderate about the strong bond Robert and his wife have built over the years. The narrator also lacks self-awareness when he found himself thinking “what a pitiful life this woman must have led.” (Carver 3) The woman being Beulah, Robert`s recently deceased wife, who the narrator belittled as she married a blind man and now she “could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one.” (Carver 3) Not realizing that with
In Chaim Potok’s book, The Chosen, blindness is a recurring theme. Although there are some instances of physical blindness, such as Billy in the hospital, most of the situations in this book are of the figurative sense. In these circumstances, the person has good physical vision, however, due to their previous experiences, they are not able to see the true situation.
In the novel, Paradise of the Blind, written by Duong Thu Huong originally in Vietnamese and translated into English by Phan Huy Duong and Nina Mcpherson, the author constructs characters Aunt Tam and Uncle Chinh as analogs of conflicting political ideologies of 20th century Vietnam in order to display her opinions on its effectiveness in attaining proclaimed paradise. The characters are constructed to differently express the author’s voice towards extremist ideologies, Uncle Chinh
The way she uses description in this essay and the flow of events is very similar to the way that memories rush in when one returns to a familiar place from one’s past. To someone that may not of experienced this phenomena the details described may seem to be disconnected and random.
In the story of life, time is a ravenous beast, destroying and building regardless and apathetic to whom it affects. An inescapable thing that never dies, but plagues people with its shapes of past, present, and future. In Paradise of the Blind by Duong Thu Huong, Duong doesn’t hold back when exposing the ugly face of the past. Hang, the protagonist, faces poverty, a broken family, and the loss of love from an early age, which force her mature quickly and harshly. Her exposure to such extreme, difficult circumstances and her subsequent adaptation result in her loss of innocence, instilling a bitterness in Hang that taints her. This bitterness - more of a mourning for her own childhood - exposes itself through Hang’s reflections on the
Within the text we notice the invading friendship between the unrevealed narrator’s (the husband) wife and the blind character Robert. Their relationship initiates the insecurities for the narrator, as it transpired though the course of ten years and many deep revealing conversations. Robert and his wife shared with each other countless important and confidential moments of their lives, but the narrator
Cathedral was written by Raymond Carver he was a working-class man who married at the age of nineteen and had two children and ended up dying of lung cancer. This story has three characters a blind man named Robert, the narrator, and the narrator’s wife, it starts out with the wife tell the husband which is the narrator that her longtime friend was going to spend the night which is Robert, which makes the husband a little jealous feeling like the blind man was coming to steal his wife. The story takes a wide turn when the Robert becomes more human-like than the narrator. I feel like blind people have more sense of life than people that can see. People that can see are sometimes blinded by their own wants and needs which makes them slow to see the big picture and with blind people because they can’t see they a care about other’s wants and needs.
We gain many insights from the use of first person in “Cathedral” such as, the narrator’s opinions of blind people, the change of heart of the narrator, and how the narrator felt after his sudden realization. An example of his biased opinion of blind people includes when he said, “In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed” (32). These types of broad generalizations at the start help to show his attitude leading up to his change of heart towards blind people. Through the use of first-person narration (175) and dynamic character (220), we get to see the narrator change his opinion over time. For example, the narrator said, “it was like nothing else in my life up to now” (42).
Nick fidgeted with his train ticket and bent the corners. He buttoned and unbuttoned his flannel shirt and he re-tied his shoelaces. He could now see the train slowing to a stop as it pulled into the station. It was big and loud. Nick couldn’t remember the last time he had been on a train. Nick stood up. He picked up his things.
In Raymond Carver’s Cathedral, the reader is given a glimpse into the precarious relationship between the narrator and his wife. The narrator shares his heavily critical point of view on the forthcoming visit from his wife’s old friend whom he calls “the blind man” later known as “Robert”. Specifically, Carver uses first person narrative to put the reader in the mindset of the speaker who although keeps information hidden about himself, eventually exposes a substantial amount of character through his commentary. Slowly but surely he divulges his tremendously insecure, stubborn, and immature nature when it comes to matters of exhibiting empathy for others and most importantly obtaining the emotional depth for it.
The blind man and the narrator differ on their views of the world. The blind man takes advantage of life by making friends and learning new things. The narrator sees the world superficially. He does not find deeper meanings in life and values appearances over lessons. Towards the end that changes. Once the narrator views a picture from the blind visitor’s perspective, he sees the world in a new way. “My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn’t feel like I was inside
Set in the 1980s, Duong Thu Huong 's 'Paradise of the Blind ' narrates the life of a 20 years old Vietnamese lady, Hang, as she makes a long train ride to Moscow where she reflects on her childhood in Vietnam during the time of Communist reign. Throughout the novel, Huong conveys the story in the perspective of Hang using different motifs. Unquestionably, one such motif is the use food, which is recurrent and significant. In the two selected passages from Paradise of the Blind, Huong emphasizes that food, which reveals one 's status in the hierarchy of the social order, is often a powerful form of human expression that is used to quantify one 's love and respect from others, specifically among family members.