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The Gangster We Are All Looking For Le Thi Diem Thuy

The Gangster We Are Looking For

The Gangster We Are Looking For ' is constructed as series of five interrelated stories - series of sharply drawn and brief vignettes Viewpoints , time and place are swiftly changing when the narrator tells about the incidents in the USA and remembers Vietnam . The past and the presents are interwoven and the narrator seems to be moved by personal associations . It is necessary to underline that instead of common storytelling the narrator refers to association and juxtaposition to intensify readers ' impression of the story . Actually , the novel is

br powerful , original , and affecting debut exploring the themes of emigration , cultural identity and cultural heritage . The importance of home and family relations are emphasized as well

The narrator tells the story of six Vietnamese refuges who were forced to leave their native country in 1978 . They sailed to California shores seeking better life and more opportunities . The main heroine , who remains nameless , is presented as a girl being disoriented by the myriad of sad events occurring in her life . The girl becomes obsessed with a butterfly weight . The girl with her father and four uncles appear on the street . Nevertheless , the family can 't get rid of war memories as the narrator says : 'War has no beginning and no end . It crosses oceans like a splintered boat . Actually , it is the first novel about refugees and challenges they faced when immigrating to American society .The novel is a story about America and Vietnam showing symbolically adult resignation and youthful yearning , tenacity of hopes and past loses . The first-person narrator remains nameless , as it is mentioned above , is a Vietnamese girl who manages to escape by boat with her father and reach the shores of San Diego . Girl 's Ba is a house painter and then he works as welder and gardener . When mother joins them , their family relations become filled with tensions and misunderstanding Moreover , the father is haunted by the past as far as it is wrapped up in lost of mysterious and strange events . The narrator tells sadly that he is able to seat motionless in the dark for many hours , and 'his body absolutely still , his hands folded on his lap , penitent straining toward things no one can see . Girl 's father is also the gangster of the title . In particular , he is a former soldier in the South Vietnamese Army . After the war he was sent to re-education camp However , in America in is a man of drunken rages , but he is never utterly defeated . His daughter says that his friends fell all around him 'first during the war and then after the war , but somehow he alone managed to crawl here , on his hands and knees , to this life

The novel is rather symbolic . For example , the mother compares the war with a bird with broken wing : War is a bird with a broken wing flying over the countryside , trailing blood and burying crops in sorrow . In such a way she...

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