ipl-logo

Everything I Never Told You Theme

622 Words3 Pages

Family trust and secrets are two major themes in the book Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. Readers are first presented with the fact that Lydia, the favorite child in a family of five, is dead, and they are taken on an crazy, complex journey to find out how and why. Through this journey they detect the growing tension between family members, and how their desire to keep secrets from each other ultimately lead to family discord. Personally, I believe that family members do not need to, but rather are encouraged, to share their feelings with one another. I think that age is one limitation in sharing your feelings and thoughts with family members. As people become older, they become more stubborn, and therefore are less willing …show more content…

Marilyn, in eager pursuit of her medical degree, leaves her family for nine weeks to study to finish her last year of college. However, she never leaves a note explaining why she left. Although the real reason she left is because her mom wanted her to become a doctor and live an academic based life, this holding back of feelings causes complete chaos in the Lee household: James believes that Marilyn leaves because he is Asian and an outsider, and Nath and Lydia believe that she left because they disappointed her. They sit on the couch all day watching TV and live off of cereal and sandwiches. After exactly two months, Lydia makes a promise she swears she will never break: “If her mother ever came home...She would do everything her mother told her. Everything her mother wanted. (137)” Eventually, Marilyn returns, and her arrival is “nothing short of a miracle. (Ng 146).” Life goes on in the Lee household, and eventually Lydia finds herself a sophomore in high school. Her parents push her to take advanced, rigorous courses, and although her parents are under the impression that Lydia is a happy girl at school with lots of friends and adequate grades, they are wrong. She is actually very lonely, and her friends only use her for homework. Her grades are severely slipping as well. Since Lydia does not share these feelings with her parents, they weigh her down. The promise she made the day

Show More
Related

Story Analysis: The Pod By Maureen Wartski

548 Words | 3 Pages

Some family members are exasperating because they talk too much. You may not be inquisitive, but what they say may be indispensable later. This is exactly what happened in the short story, The Pod by Maureen Wartski, Jesse cannot endure his cousin Pete. All Pete did was talks about dolphins. The iron of the story is Jesse will later need the information that Pete gave tryed to give him.

Read More

Summary Of The Dark By Rosemary Bray

1016 Words | 5 Pages

the children of that grade were mean to her, maybe out of jealousy, but she was left out of cliques and got left lonely during recess. Her learning abilities were what set her apart from everybody else and made her life at home much more bearable. On page 24, Bray states that “when my parents spoke quietly together about how smart I was they almost sounded like a regular father and mother.” her hard working mother could not seem to do anything right regardless of how hard she was working while her hard tempered father found every reason to be angry with her. In this novel, Rosemary L. Bray is faced with the struggle of welfare and seeming to have no way out of this poor life until she understands where an education can get you.

Read More

The Motifs In Melinda's Tree By Laurie Halse-Anderson

729 Words | 3 Pages

Melinda is a Freshman in high school, and she doesn’t speak throughout the whole entire year, because of an issue she faced during the summer. Laurie Halse-Anderson tells a lot in her book Speak about how many important issues young people face every day. In this essay, there will be three motifs about the themes Laurie Anderson put in her book, Melinda’s tree, the weather, and Melinda’s lips. Melinda faced a lot of issues, but there were somethings that gave off how she was feeling. The first was her tree project.

Read More

Lee Fiora's Identity In Prep By Curtis Sittenfeld

1057 Words | 5 Pages

On the one hand, when at Ault, Lee often secludes herself from her classmates on the premise of her background and home identity. When speaking to Dave, she thinks he has mistaken her for “...one of the true Ault students,” showing Lee to not consider herself to really be a member of the Ault community (235). Moreover, Lee feels particularly attached to her parents when she is talking to other Ault students. Despite sometimes not getting along with her own parents, Lee thinks that Nick should feel guilty for expressing happiness that his parents are not visiting him. By doing so, Lee distances herself from her peers in the conversation by suddenly considering “...it betrayal to insult people [she is] close to,” such as her family, to other Ault students (169).

Read More

Communication In Celeste Ng's 'Everything I Never Told You'

1066 Words | 5 Pages

Ultimately, Ng proves how poor communication within the Lee family is the main culprit of Lydia’s death, which the author uses to demonstrate

Read More

Lucy Grealy's Autobiography Analysis

2001 Words | 9 Pages

She experiences Industry verses Inferiority during the ages suggested by Erik Erikson. Throughout these years, she struggles to feel competent in her athletics and fitting in with her peers despite her different accent, but acknowledges her adeptness in academics and dares. Lucy also experiences Erikson’s third stage, Initiative versus Guilt; however, she experiences it from age nine all the way to through graduate school and after. She experiences the aspects of this stage as she puts the issues of her family on her own shoulders, and feels guilt and shame. Because she cannot resist crying during chemotherapy and when losing her hair, and has too high of expectations for surgery outcomes, she feels she is a disappointment and blames herself for being unable to fix her family.

Read More

Analysis Of Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

1154 Words | 5 Pages

Stone writes about three essential functions of family stories– to pass on the family’s standards, to identify family characteristics, and coping strategies. The first of the three functions is the standards of the family since the family act as the “first culture,” teaching people what their family values and their opinions on certain situations like marriage and illness, mental or physical (Stone 384). The second factor is the family’s characteristics and their traits that bind them together, which act as the family member’s confidence boost (384). Furthermore, this boost makes them value themselves more than the next family, so that the family members contently remain together (384). The third factor is influencing how families cope; these “teaching stories” tell each family how to function outside of the family (385).

Read More

Psychological Effects On Lydia

646 Words | 3 Pages

In addition, Lydia lives under the pressure of her parents’ high expectations, which cause negative effects on her psychological health. This pressure begins after her mother’s return in her childhood. Marilyn accepts the reality that she has no abilities to pursue a doctor career once she marries and has children. However, when she hears that Lydia loses the cookbook, she decides to let Lydia to fulfill her unable dream. She expects Lydia to be successful without any gender barriers like hers.

Read More

Night By Elie Wiesel Family Character Analysis

1243 Words | 5 Pages

It is always going to be important to remember to always care for loved ones, because one day, they could be gone. Always cherish the time with them, even if inside feelings are mixed at times. Family is a blessing and can be a curse, but they are not one in the

Read More

Prible Childhood Jeannette Research Paper

578 Words | 3 Pages

New York was a place for opportunity and as the children excelled in school, they were going to succeed there. The only person that was not involved in the New York trip was Jeannette’s younger sister, Maureen, who associated herself more with her friends than with her siblings. Her friends provided Maureen with the essentials her parents failed to give, which gave her no reason to leave Welch. “When other girls came in and threw away their lunch bags in the garbage pails, I’d go retrieve them. I couldn’t get over the way kids tossed out all this perfectly good food [...]

Read More

Ella Fitzgerald Research Paper

1218 Words | 5 Pages

The news of Tempie’s death shook Ella greatly. Shortly following her mother’s death, Ella was taken in by Tempie’s sister Virginia. After moving, Ella had a hard time adjusting to her new surroundings and became unhappy eventually starting to skip school frequently thus causing her grades to drop. It was at this time that she got into trouble with the police and was sent to a reform school. However, things got even worse for Ella while she was in the reform school as she often suffered beatings from those in charge.

Read More

Figurative Language In Where Have You Been Where Are You Going

1583 Words | 7 Pages

Teenagers tend to isolate themselves from their parents at this time, have more time and money for leisure activities and conformity, and have more money to spend. The short story suggests that adolescents' sexuality and violence were influenced by wealthy and celebrity-obsessed American culture. Because most of the short story is written in Connie's third person, other characters remain unidentified and mysterious. Additionally, the narrator can deviate significantly from the actual events and describe them in a manner that is more general and allegorical by using the third person to tell the story. Connie, who was just 15 years old at the time, is without a doubt a part of the culture and is influenced by everything.

Read More

Symbolism In Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

747 Words | 3 Pages

Connie is a fifteen-year-old who is trying to make the best of her life by seeking attention from others. Having the attention, she wants makes her feel superior, and make her feel like no one can tear down her ego. The only one trying to tear down her ego is her mother who wants her to be like her older sister June who is the opposite of Connie. She is mature and even helps the family out. For Connie to be taught a lesson of her conceded qualities, she encounters meet Arnold.

Read More

Overcoming Obstacles In The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

701 Words | 3 Pages

In the end of 10th grade, I had to pick my own classes which was overwhelming. My parents were not able to help because they did not have to take the same classes. Similarly when I had to get my working papers, my parents weren’t able to help me because they had no experience with it. This process was new to me because I was not used to filling out official forms. Much like Jeanette’s situation, I had to do everything on my own.

Read More

Emily Case Study Case Studies

1748 Words | 7 Pages

She is experiencing instability, uncertainty, and challenges which are all apart of the appropriate development of adolescents. These are all expected and common tasks of any adolescent approaching adulthood and going through some of the many changes of

Read More

More about Everything I Never Told You Theme

Related Topics

Open Document