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Bitter In The Mouth Analysis

1384 Words6 Pages

Rachel Mathews
E 260
March 13, 2018
Dr. Shaun Morgan
Paper #1
“Bitter in the Mouth” by Monique Truong explores race, gender and sexuality, and never had a definite theme. It starts off with a young, seven-year-old North Carolina girl, with many layered secrets, who name was Linda Hammerick. She stated that she “fell in love with” (1) her great-uncle Baby Harper. She also talks about her parents, DeAnne and Thomas, and her best friend, Kelly. She states that she was her father’s tomboy and her mother’s baton twirler and that she went far away for college and law school, now living in New York. There was narrative discourse throughout this story because the narrator used emotions and the past to narrate it. Also, the narrator used an odd chronological …show more content…

This is one of the most significant quote in the book. Instead of comparing her immigrant mother to Linda, who was American born, Linda uses the example of being in a privileged white family. Linda mentions, “from the age of seven to eighteen, there was nothing Asian about me except my body” (169-70). Linda stated that she looked Asian, but she didn’t feel Asian what so ever. She used the quote, “Since leaving Boiling Springs, I was often asked by complete strangers what it was like to grow up being Asian in the South. You mean what was it like to grow up looking Asian in the South, I would say back to them…For me, pointing out to them the difference between “being” and “looking” was the beginning, the middle, and the end of my answer” (169). Overall, Linda is stating that American identity was more about appearance rather than just tradition. Despite being in a white privileged home, that does not take away people seeing her as Asian. She also felt like she could relate to the black community in Boiling Springs because she felt like she did not belong in that current society. The two words “being” and “looking” are completely different definitions, they both define with how people looks at others today meaning what you look like defines who and what you are. This announcement left me uneasy because it made me realize why she acts the way she does and why she does not like Deanne. It was not until the very end of the book when her great-uncle Baby Harper passes away that she and Deanne connected. Deanne told Linda about her past and Linda does not know whether she is telling the truth or not, but she was happy regardless, because she felt a connection between

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