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

The process or act of writing, speaking, or gesturing to exchange information or ideas is known as communication. In Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You, the lack of communication in the Lee family proves to be the most responsible for Lydia’s death, as Ng highlights the unfortunate and sometimes tragic consequences that will result from miscommunication within a family.
To begin, James and Marilyn keep many secrets to themselves, leading to them almost breaking up. The night after Marilyn leaves to go pursue her dream of becoming a doctor, James finds a note torn up in the trash can, saying, “I have kept all these feelings inside me for a long time, but now, after being in my mother’s house again, I think of her and realize I cannot put them aside any

It starts when James sees Nath bullied for the first time, at the pool. After the incident, James “wanted to gather his son into his arms, to tell him that he understood” (Ng 91). James understands how it feels to be bullied because he himself was bullied as a kid for being Asian. James does not comfort his son and doesn’t tell Nath that he understands how it feels to be bullied. He just keeps silent and makes it seem like it's not such a big deal. James does not know how to communicate what he is actually feeling, making the bond between him and Nath very thin. James feels frantic and panicky when Marilyn leaves, so when Nath asks James a normal question, “James slap[s] him, so hard Nath’s teeth rattled. ‘Shut up about that nonsense’” (134). James, finally feeling the pressure Marilyn feels when dealing with the kids, explodes, and wrongly hits Nath. Again, James demonstrates that he does not know how to express his feelings, and instead resorts to violence, something he never would have done with