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Analysis Of Who Will Light Incense When Mother's Gone By Andrew Lam

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Analysis of a Creative Non-Fiction Essay There can be many literary elements that can be found in a creative non-fiction essay. In the essay “Who will light incense when Mother’s gone?” written by Andrew Lam, literary themes is recognized as one of the key elements in this essay. The themes of this non-fiction text is rebellion and identity because the author is rebelling against his Vietnamese tradition and being a writer has become a part of his identity. This essay will demonstrate how and why those two literary theme utilizes this non-fiction essay. In the essay “Who will light incense when Mother’s gone?” The theme that best represents this essay is rebellion. While being raised in Vietnam, the narrator, which is the Andrew Lam, and his family have a ritual tradition, …show more content…

While his mother was enjoying herself at her 80’s birthday party, she whispered to her youngest sister-in-law and questioned “Who will light incense to the dead when I’m gone?” Neither one of their kids wanted to continue on with the tradition and they both knew that there wasn’t any hope for the grandkids to pick up the tradition because they didn’t understand what they were doing and why they were lightening the incense. “They don’t even understand what we are doing when we pray to the dead. Guess when we’re gone, the rituals ends.” (Lam1). Eventually, the mother asked her son to speak more Vietnamese inside the house so that he could possibly be the one to keep the rituals going. He replied “No” and asked “What good is it to speak it, Mom? It’s not as if I’m going to use it after I move out.” The reason being for him not wanting to light the incense tradition because he had become accustomed to living the American way of things and felt that there wasn’t any reason to continue the ritual. Andrew wasn’t really interested into carrying on the tradition. If he did, he wouldn’t have been doing it just because he wanted to keep

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