When writing a close analysis, the first step is doing a close reading. Reading carefully and curiously and looking for places in the text that seem interesting or significant to you will uncover ideas for you to write about. Let’s walk through that process now.
Whether or not you’ve already read the story “Children as Enemies,” read this passage through the lens of how the author, Ha Jin, uses language to convey the conflict between three generations of a Chinese family.
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Children as Enemies / Ha Jin
The teachers here don’t assign the pupils any real homework. Instead they give them a lot of projects, some of which seem no more than woolgathering, and tend to inflate the kids’ egos. My son had to help his children with the projects, which were more like homework for the parents. Some of the topics were impossible even for adults to tackle, such as “What is culture and how is it created?” “Make your argument for or against the Iraq War,” “How does the color line divide U.S. society?” and “Do you think global trade is necessary? Why?” My son had to do research online and in the public library to get the information needed for discussing those topics. Admittedly, they could broaden the pupils’ minds and give them more confidence, but at their tender age they are not supposed to think like a politician or a scholar. They should be made to follow rules; that is, to become responsible citizens first.
Whenever I asked Flora how she was ranked in her class, she’d shrug and say, “I dunno.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” I suspected she must be well below the average, though she couldn’t be lower than her brother.
“Ms. Gillen doesn’t rank us is all,” came her answer.
If that was true, I was even more disappointed with the schools. How could they make their students competitive in this global economy if they didn’t instill in them the sense of getting ahead of others and becoming the very best? No wonder many Asian parents viewed the public schools in Flushing unfavorably. In my honest opinion, elementary education here tends to lead children astray.
Five weeks ago, Matt declared at dinner that he must change his last name, because a substitute teacher that morning had mispronounced “Xi” as “Eleven.” That put the whole class in stitches, and some students even made fun of the boy afterward, calling him “Matt Eleven.” Flora chimed in, “Yeah, I want a different last name too. My friend Reta just had her family name changed to Wu. Some people couldn’t pronounce “Ng” and called her ‘Reta No Good.’”
Their parents broke out laughing, but I couldn’t see why that was funny. My wife said to the girl, “You’ll have your husband’s last name when you grow up and get married.”
“I don’t want no man!” the girl shot back.
“We both must have a new last name,” the boy insisted.
I burst out, “You can’t do that. Your last name belongs to the family, and you can’t cut yourselves off from your ancestors.”
“Baloney!” The boy squished up his face.
“You mustn’t speak to your granddad like that,” his grandmother butted in.
Mandi and my son exchanged glances. I knew they saw this matter differently from us. Maybe they had been planning to change their children’s last name all along. Enraged, I dropped my bowl on the dining table and pointed my finger at Mandi. “You’ve tried your best to spoil them. Now you’re happy to let them break away from the family tree. What kind of daughter-
“Please don’t blow up like this, Dad,” my son said.
Mandi didn’t talk back. Instead she began sobbing, wrinkling her gourd-
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“Who are you?” Matt said calmly. “This isn’t your home.”
“You’re just our guests,” added Flora.
That drove both my wife and me mad. She yelled at our granddaughter, “So we sold everything in China, our apartment and candy store, just to be your guests here, huh? Heartless. Who told you this isn’t our home?”
That shut the girl up, though she kept glaring at her grandma. Their father begged no one in particular, “Please, let us finish dinner peacefully.” He went on chewing a fried shrimp with his mouth closed.
I wanted to yell at him that he was just a rice barrel thinking of nothing but food, but I controlled my anger. How could we have raised such a spineless son?
Brainstorm your response to this passage by identifying who is telling the story and what your initial feelings about him are. Circle any words or phrases that make a particularly strong impression on you.
You’ve read the passage once; now read it again. This time, start annotating by noting specific literary devices. Although we discussed some of these in Chapter 2, let’s review a few.
Point of View
It’s always a good idea to get your bearings when you start reading by figuring out whose perspective you’re experiencing, that is, who’s holding the camera, so to speak.
What is the point of view? First person? Third person? Limited? Omniscient? How do you know?
Who is the speaker and what is his perspective? Is it a major character looking back on an experience? A minor character who relates the story as an uninvolved bystander?
Is the story told largely through dialogue or direct narration?
Diction
Does the writer use formal diction with elevated vocabulary, or informal diction that includes slang, colloquialisms, jargon, or dialect?
Does the writer rely heavily on connotative language with strong emotional overtones and associations?
Does the writer use concrete, specific, vivid language to describe people, places, and objects, along with active verbs to emphasize actions? Or does the writer use more abstract words that tend to convey bigger ideas and more philosophical concepts?
Figurative Language
Does the writer use stylistic devices that go beyond literal meaning: similes, metaphors, images, and symbols? If so, what is the effect of that use?
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Identify four elements of style in the passage from “Children as Enemies” and explain how two of them contribute to conveying the generational conflicts within the family. For each element of style you select, choose an example and discuss the effect the stylistic move has.