Everything I Never Told You By Celeste Ng

In the novel,” Everything I Never Told You” written by Celeste Ng, every member of the Lee family experiences their own forms of abuse. The parents, Marilyn and James, also experienced their own turmoil during their youth. Ng indicates throughout the book that the way James and Marilyn grew up, affected the way they raised their kids. Collectively, Nath, Lydia, and Hannah all suffered, causing them to inherit behaviors from both of their parents due to the way their parents raised them. Proving descendants can introduce trauma in various ways. The mother of the Lee family, Marilyn, is responsible for pushing her failed childhood dreams onto their golden child, Lydia. Throughout Marilyn's early years her mother, Doris Walker, was the stereotypical

29-30) made sure that Marilyn viewed her mother as the “average” woman. Marilyn and her mother didn't quite see things eye to eye, Marilyn wanted her education to represent her while her mother wanted to be what the standards at the time were. Making Marilyn value being different and “Standing out”. This would also affect her appeal to her husband, James. It becomes obvious that Marilyn tried her best to override her mother, even when she was going to college her mother states, “You know, you'll meet a lot of wonderful Harvard men.”(Ng.30) Her resentment shows later in life when the book says, “it would bother Marilyn, for the rest of her life, that her mother had been right. (Ng.30) Marilyn's mother never supported her dreams. Ng writes,. Marilyn sipped double-strength tea and kept awake by picturing herself in a white doctor's coat, laying a cool hand against a feverish forehead, touching a stethoscope to a patient's chest. It was the furthest thing she could imagine from her mother's life.