Gish Jen's Use Of Foreshadowing In Typical American

Life is hard, especially when you are a young man from China trying to make a life in America. This is portrayed throughout Gish Jen’s novel, Typical American. In this novel, a young man moves from China to America to study to become an engineer and he goes through many hardships trying to make a new life there. The young man, Ralph, struggles through many aspects of settling into his new life and creating new relationships in America. Jen uses setting, characterization, and foreshadowing throughout the novel to describe the many struggles Ralph goes through during his new life. Jen uses setting throughout the novel to give the reader a description of the scene the characters are in. Jen uses setting to create a picture of the scene for the

Characterization is used when describing Ralph’s father, “His son, an advanced engineer! No one knows what is possible like a father… though Yifeng has scored seventeenth on the department exam, he is one of ten picked to go.” (5). This characterization shows values Ralph’s father has, these are his extremely high expectations of his son. Ralph’s values are also shown in the novel when he made a plan for what he wanted to do in America, “On his way to America, Yifeng studied… as the boat rocked and pitched he set out two main goals for himself. He was going to be first in his class, and he was not going home until he had a doctorate rolled up to hand to his father.” (6). The values of Ralph shown here are his strong work ethic and his need to live up to his father’s expectations. Jen’s use of characterization gives the reader an idea of the character’s values, foreshadowing is also something she uses often in the

In this particular case, Jen is very clear with the message she is getting across to the reader, “Everything was, as Grover said, hunky-dory, until Ralph had his idea” (219). Jen is very obvious when she foreshadows to the reader that Ralph’s idea for the restaurant would impact some of the characters negatively, which it did when Ralphs idea caused the building to have many cracks and eventually not be usable. Jen is not as clear in her foreshadowing in this part of the novel, ‘“So whose acquaintance do I have the honor of making here, eh?” He winked deliberately at Helen. “It is certainly a pleasure.” With a bow, he extended his hand to her.” (92-93). Jen was discreet when she showed that Grover was attracted to Helen, later in the novel Grover and Helen had an affair. Jen uses foreshadowing in different ways to give the reader an idea of what will happen later in the