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Interracial Relationships In Dragonfish

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Vu Tran’s Dragonfish represents an interracial relationship. The novel delves into the relationship between Hong and Robert. The story presents a stereotypical interracial relationship since it depicts a white American man that falls in love with a strong-willed Asian immigrant women. At first, the reader gets a sense that this novel will be another stereotypical relationship, in which the women is docile and dependent on her American husband since her English is limited and isolates her from the rest of the world. However, Hong goes against all conventions of stereotypical interracial relationships. As the novel progresses Tran revises the role of women in the relationship by deviating the expectations of an Asian woman.
Tran resists the representation of Asian women and white men in a romantic relationship. In a conventional relationship, women are expected to be these helpless beings that need their husbands to save them. Ironically, in this relationship Robert is saved by his ex-wife. Robert believes that he is Hong’s savior, nonetheless the novel …show more content…

Under mainstream gender roles it is a typical concept that women love romance. However, Hong goes against the grain in how she is uninflected by the woes of romance: “We could go to the zoo, eat authentic Mexican food, visit the beaches and see Tijuana in the distance. She agreed but seemed less than thrilled. I suspected a honeymoon in our living room would have suited her just fine (136).” For their honeymoon Hong seemed unaffected by the conventions of romance. It is Robert that needs the romance between them to feel a connection to Hong. The careful planning of the honeymoon, her favorite meals, and the beautiful scenery did not invoke romantic emotions in her. It appeared that the relationship between Hong and Robert is not romantic, nevertheless it is grounded upon the comfort of having a companion and a sexual

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