34 pages • 1 hour read
Who's Irish?
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Symbols & Motifs
Blindness
Observing without really seeing and inattentional blindness—that is, when someone fails to see something in plain sight because they are not expecting it to be there—are recurring themes in this collection. In “Who’s Irish?,” the narrator makes a comment to the mother-in-law about their children’s marriage by stating, “I was never against the marriage either…I just wonder if they look at the whole problem” (7). The grandmother does not expand on this thought or offer up what she thinks the “whole” problem might be. There are many small problems, but the “whole problem” remains unspoken.
In “The Water Faucet Vision,” the narrator is so consumed with her working miracle to get Patty Creamer’s father to return that she does not see what is going on at her own house until her mother is pushed out the window by her father. In “Duncan in China,” when Duncan asks Louise if she has seen the statue of Mao’s widow with the noose around her neck, Louise blushes but replies, “I see nothing” (55). Louise remains a mystery to Duncan throughout the story. Even when Professor Mo suggests that not everything about Louise is as it seems, Duncan is still faithful in his desire for her. Duncan is aware there are many things he doesn’t know about how her family was able to survive the revolution, and while he wonders about this mystery, he does not want to know more.
At dinner with Guotai and Bing Bing, Guotai confronts Duncan’s obvious fear that Guotai has tuberculosis. Duncan denies this, and Guotai responds, “You turn your head” (85). All evening Duncan has been turning his head every time Guotai coughs; he is both fearful that his cousin has TB and unable to watch the behavior of his cousin and son. In looking away, Duncan has already refused to see or acknowledge his family history and heritage as it sits before him, much less bring these family members back to America.
At the end of the story, Duncan acknowledges that “there was one thing he had, being an American—not so much an unshakable conviction as a habit of believing in the happiest possibility. Truly it was a form of blindness” (91). Duncan is not changed by his journey in the way he thinks he will be, but he does leave with a deeper understanding of himself and his response to seeing what he does not want to see in China.
Familial Isolation
Many characters in this collection feel a sense of isolation. For some of them, this feeling is caused by living in two cultures at once; for others, the feeling takes place in their own homes, with their own families. In “Who’s Irish?,” the grandmother is living with her daughter and her daughter’s family, but she feels like the live-in babysitter, not the grandmother. Duncan is a “dropout” in America and is described as inferior to his brother, Arnie. In China, while Duncan is given the title of “foreign expert,” it doesn't take much time for this feeling of being special to wear off as Duncan realizes he isn’t an expert at anything, in America or in China.
In “Just Wait,” Addie thinks about her brother, Ned, who would often say, “You see me not” to their mother (104), who would then call him crazy. Addie realizes how easily one can disappear in a family even when one is present as she is on the cusp of both her mother’s and her child’s arrival in her home. Addie goes into labor but doesn’t tell anyone; experiencing this knowledge alone makes her think about introducing her child to Ned and what he would say upon meeting them.
Collective History
Family history is introduced as an everchanging and malleable concept throughout these stories. Characters move in and out of their families, romanticize their families’ pasts, and write narratives about families that they observe.
Ralph Chang does this most obviously in “In the American Society” when, after the initial success of the pancake house, he begins telling his daughters stories they have never heard about their family history. Whether or not these stories are completely accurate doesn’t change the fact that they are now a part of the daughters’ remembered history of their father.
The narrator in “Chin” and his family tell the story of the family next door through speculations about everything they do, from why they keep their windows closed to why Chin is always receiving beatings from his father. In telling the story of the family next door, the narrator’s family is also telling the collective story of themselves. In “The Water Faucet Vision,” the narrator’s vision is eclipsed by her family's response, which is total dismissal. The family brings the narrator to her loss of innocence where she realizes neither God nor religion is going to protect her from the pains of life.
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By Gish Jen
